


Nemetona

by SerpaSas



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Death Fix, Dimension Travel, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Post Miracle Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpaSas/pseuds/SerpaSas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A malfunctioning Dimension Cannon. Alternate versions of Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones. Sometimes, Jack thinks the Universes must have a sadistic sense of humour.</p><p>This fic will probably never be finished; I'm truly sorry to all those who subscribed or left comments</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nemetona

_Nemetona... is a goddess of sanctuary. She is present within the home... in all the spaces that we hold dear to our hearts. She also lies within, allowing us to feel at ease wherever we are in the world, though it’s not an easy task._

_She is the spirit of a home, a place, an idea._

/./

“Hey, Tosh, is it supposed to be doing that?”

Toshiko Sato turned away from her monitors to answer Owen, who was staring suspiciously at the tech on the table in front of him. “What is it doing?” she questioned as she approached the Dimension Cannon, which was waiting to be disassembled.

After Rose Tyler had returned to this universe and it had been double checked, triple checked, and confirmed by the Doctor- who had come back to this world with Commander Tyler- that the stars were no longer going out, and that the darkness would not be returning, it had been decided almost unanimously that as the Dimension Cannon had the power to rip holes in the fabric of the universe, it, along with any research and related tech would be destroyed. Most of it was in London, but the Cannon itself was sent to Torchwood Cardiff to be disassembled by Torchwood's best tech expert.

But, of course, since nothing ever seemed to go easily at Torchwood Three, the Cannon was now doing something it most definitely was not supposed to be doing.

“It appears to be powering up,” the Torchwood operative from London who had escorted it to Cardiff, a man by the name of Ianto Jones, observed nervously.

“Hey, Suzie! Somethings going on with the Cannon!” Owen called out to their leader, who was sitting in her office doing paper work. She looked up with a frown, standing and beginning to make her way towards them.

“It shouldn't be doing this! I don't understand...” Tosh murmured to herself as she began examining the Cannon.

“It shouldn't be working at all,” Ianto agreed. “The Doctor told us that the walls between the Universes were closed.”

“Who is this 'Doctor' that we keep hearing about, anyways?” Owen grumbled.

“He knows what he's talking about. He came from another universe, himself.” Ianto informed him.

“Other universe, sure. I dunno if I believe the whole 'alternate reality' thing-” Owen began, but was cut off as the Dimension Cannon turned on suddenly, and the Hub disappeared.

..

In the same room in a different dimension, a man looked around in appreciation.

“Impressive,” Rhys whistled as he walked into the newly rebuilt Hub. It had been finished for almost a month now, and Gwen, Rex, and Jack had mostly settled in, but this was the first time Rhys had seen the new base of Torchwood.

A screech from overhead caused Rhys to release a startled chuckle, watching as Myfanwy flew out of her nest, gliding around the Hub happily. “So you managed to find her, eh?”

“Not a lot of pteranodons wandering around Wales. Just kept an ear out for talk of oversized birds.” Jack told him. “So, what do you think?”

Rhys nodded appreciatively, Gwen coming up to his side. “Its different than the old one. More- I don't know. Professional? Homey? Definitely less damp?” Gwen laughed. “Let's try and keep this one in one piece, yeah?”

Jack grinned. “I'll do my best,” he promised, nodding at Rex as the other man joined them. “So, that brings us to the next order of business- Rhys Williams. You have been a valuable part of Torchwood for a while now, unofficially. Then again, Torchwood was unofficial. But now that we're rebuilt, and the Queen has reinstated us, I am offering you an official position in Torchwood.”

Rhys looked shocked. He had assumed that they would keep him unofficial- he was happy to do it, if it kept Gwen safe, and that way they didn't have to pay him. “Well- I wasn't expecting that,” he admitted. “Gwen?”

His wife smiled at him. “I think that you've been brilliant with all of this, Rhys, ever since the thing with the alien meat. But if you'd rather stay home and take care of Anwen, or you would rather get your old job back, do that. I want you to do what makes you happy.”

Rhys beamed at his Gwen, complete and utter love shining in his eyes. Her eyes reflected it right back.

“If you do go back to your old job- and we can put in a damn good recommendation for you- you can always still help us out,” Jack added. “The SUV can't haul everything.”

“I think-” he began, but was cut off as there was a sudden flash of light and alarms began going off. 

They turned to find three bodies in a heap lying on the floor. Jack, Gwen, and Rex pulled their guns out so quickly Rhys barely even registered them drawing their weapons, all three pointed steadily on the suddenly appeared forms.

“Put your hands on your head, and stand up, slowly.” Gwen commanded, shouting to be heard over the still blaring alarms.

None of them moved.

Jack moved cautiously to the nearest computer, his gun still levelled at the intruders as he quickly typed something in that turned the alarms off.

“Are they dead?” Rhys asked in the sudden silence.

“I think they're just out of it,” Rex commented, moving forward cautiously to pull one of them up. “Yup, out of it.” He moved to show them that the person was unconscious.

Gwen very nearly dropped her gun. “Tosh,” she whispered, shocked. Then she flung herself forward, grabbing her unconscious friend out of Rex's grasp. “How can she be here?” she asked, checking for a pulse, and finding one. Toshiko Sato was alive.

“Who are the other two?” Jack's voice was shaking, his eyes focused on the form of one of them, a body he knew so well. One that he had known every inch of, tasted every bit, kissed every spot of skin.

Rex moved to pick up the next one, and Gwen gasped again. “Owen!” she moved Tosh out of her arms, gently, replacing her with Owen to repeat her test for a pulse. “And he's alive.” She looked up at Jack, tears in her eyes. “He's _really_ alive.”

“The other one!” Jack snapped at Rex. The American shot him an annoyed look, then flipped the last body over.

Jack actually did drop his gun.

Rex raised his brows at that. “You know him, World War Two?”

Jack tried to say something, but his voice caught in his throat. He stumbled forward, taking Ianto gently into his arms, pressing his fingers lightly onto the pulse point. When he felt the steady pulse of a heart beat, he inhaled sharply.

“This isn't possible,” he said softly.

Rex gave up trying to get answers from Jack and Gwen, so he moved over to Rhys. “What are they talking about?”

“That there's Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, and Ianto Jones. All Torchwood agents. All dead.” he explained, slightly in shock.

“Well, they're obviously _not_ dead,” the American argued. As if to agree with him, Owen woke up.

“What- get off me,” he tried to get out of Gwen's arms. “Who are you?”

“Its me, Owen, it's Gwen. Don't worry, you're in the Hub, you're okay.” Gwen soothed him.

It worked slightly, although he still pulled away, staring at Gwen. “What happened?” he questioned. He thought about sitting up, but decided against that. He glanced around. It was the Hub, alright, but it was different. “What's going on?”

“Oh, crap.” 

Gwen turned to Jack, then followed his line if sight to some sort of technology on the ground near them.

Jack turned to Owen. “Is that a Dimension Cannon?” he questioned urgently.

“Yeah, London sent it over for Tosh to dissemble. It was doing something weird, next thing I know I'm here!” Owen glanced around again, standing up on shaky legs. Rhys moved forward to help him, but he was shaken off.

At this point, Tosh and Ianto began to wake.

..

Ianto felt like he had been put in a blender, then had all his atoms smashed back together to form him as he was before, just with a lot more pain.

He could feel arms around him, and legs underneath him. From this, he gathered that he was being held on someone's lap. He could tell it was a man from the deep voice which was speaking near his ear. There was also a scent surrounding him- the man's cologne, he assumed- and it was possibly the best smell he had ever encountered.

Slowly, the words being spoken started making sense to him, and Ianto realized they were talking about the Dimension Cannon. That made him remember. Something happened- the Cannon was doing something, and then- he opened his eyes.

And came face to face with a man so beautiful it made his mind go blank.

The man smiled widely, and his blank mind went even blanker.

“Hello,” the man greeted him. He was American, or a least used an American accent, his words flatter and sharper than Ianto was used to hearing. “Captain Jack Harkness. Do you know me?” his voice had a hint of wistful sadness, like he already knew the answer.

Ianto shook his head, attempting to sit up. The Captain helped him, a warm hand on his back keeping him from collapsing back when a wave of dizziness hit him.

Next to him, he could she a woman who was vaguely familiar helping Toshiko sit up, and Dr. Harper was watching them, looking at his coworker with concern.

“Jack, whats going on?” the woman asked in a Welsh accent. So he wasn't in America, at least. Or, probably not. 50%.

“They came over from another universe, Gwen.” Harkness told the woman- Gwen, apparently- and that was why Ianto recognized her, from the files he had reviewed on the members of Torchwood Three. 

“So... they aren't really them?” Gwen asked, her gaze flickering between the three of them.

He shook his head. “They are, just not the one's we knew.”

Gwen looked at Tosh, her hands still supporting the other woman as she glanced around nervously. “Do they know us?”

“I know you, Gwen. What's going on? How- everything looks different! And- and-” Tosh stopped speaking, taking a deep breath.

“You know her?” Owen sounded surprised. He was pretty much under the impression the only people Tosh knew were Torchwood or family.

“I've known Gwen for years. She's our liaison with the police.” Tosh informed him. “And a good friend.”

Gwen suppressed a sob, then pulled Tosh into a hug. “Oh, I've missed you, Toshiko,” she told her.

Tosh wrapped her arms around her friend in surprise. “I saw you two days ago...”

Gwen couldn't suppress the sob this time. Rhys moved forward to comfort his wife.

As Tosh caught sight of him, she gasped. “Rhys! How are- you're alive!”

He paused at that. “Uh, last time I checked.”

“But- but- you died! I went to your funeral.” she protested.

“I went to yours.” Rhys muttered, looking to Jack.

Jack inhaled deeply, gazing desperately at Ianto. He wanted _so badly_ to use this as a second chance, but he knew that wasn't right. This Ianto didn't know him. There wasn't a version of him in the world they had come from; Rose had hold him last time they had saw each other. She had worked for Torchwood, and had been to the Cardiff branch once or twice, and never heard of a Jack Harkness. Besides, with no Doctor and no TARDIS, he never would have had the Time Vortex pushed into him, so even if there was another him out there that him wasn't immortal, and assuming his life had gone about the same, he was either working for the Time Agency or coning Time Agents.

Jack sort of assumed that he didn't exist in any universe but this one. He was a one-and-only.

This Ianto had a life back in the other world, as did the other two, and if they could send them back to those lives, they would.

“This is gonna get complicated,” Jack began.

“Yeah, 'cause everything Torchwood is so simple,” Rex grumbled. 

They ignored him as Jack explained, “You three came through to another Dimension. I'm guessing the world you know has Vitex, Pete Tyler, and lots of zeppelins?”

“Pete Tyler is head of Torchwood.” Ianto confirmed.

“In this world, he died years ago. He never marketed Vitex, never got rich.” Jack steeled himself. “He isn't the only one who died.”

Owen narrowed his eyes. “What are you going on about?”

“You three. You all worked here, and you all died working for Torchwood. This isn't your universe, and we need to send you back.”

Ianto and Tosh exchanged a nervous look. Owen snorted. “Okay, weird joke is over. Where's Suzie?”

Gwen glanced to Jack. “Suzie? Suzie Costello?”

“Yes, Suzie Costello. Leader of Torchwood Three. Look, you've done something weird to the Hub, you've somehow got a dead man, and you're trying to tell us some weird story about us being dead,” his voice was getting panicked, so Gwen moved towards him, grabbing his shoulder. 

“Owen. Stop it.”

“No, you stop it! Stop this ridiculous cock and bull-”

Gwen cut him off again, pulling a picture out of her wallet.

It had been taken at her wedding, and it was one of her favourite photos. She was standing in Rhys's arms, her smile impossibly wide, his matching hers. To their right was Tosh, smiling happily, with Owen's arm around her, his bandaged hand resting gently on her shoulder. To the left of the newlyweds were Jack and Ianto, Jack hugging Ianto to his chest, both with content grins on their faces.

Gwen loved the picture not only because it had all of them, all her dead friends, but because everyone, for once, was actually showing affection for the person they cared for. Gwen, being so sensitive to people's emotions, had always known that Owen had cared for Tosh, and Tosh had more or less loved Owen. She also knew that Jack and Ianto had been completely in love.

Owen looked at the picture that was shoved in his face, and immediately stopped his rant.

“That's- that never happened. That's photoshopped.” he said weakly.

Tosh and Ianto moved to see the picture, and Gwen suddenly realized it might not be the best thing for them to see. If Ianto didn't know Jack, then seeing a picture of himself leaning contently, intimately, into another man might be a bit of a shock. 

It would be strange to explain to him that the Ianto from this universe had loved Jack.

As the two took in the picture, they turned to the respective people holding them in it. Tosh exchanged a confused look with Owen. Ianto turned to find Jack with a sad smile on his face as he gazed at the memory caught on film.

“Is it?” the young Welshman asked. “Photoshopped?”

Jack locked eyes with the ones he had thought he would never see again. “No.”

There was silence for a moment while they all took that in. “Hey, World War Two, you said something about sending them home?” Rex broke in, annoyed.

Jack looked over to the American, immortal, and annoying man. At this moment, he was definitely annoying, but he was also right. He turned to Tosh.

“Do you know how to work the Cannon?” he asked her, glancing down at the slightly smoking device.

“I know how to disassemble it,” she told him. “And from the looks of it, I don't need to do that any more. It doesn't look to be in working condition, but I can take a closer look. Unless you'd rather have your tech expert do that?”

Jack twisted his features into a sad smile. He seemed to be doing that a lot. “We don't have one, anymore.”

Tosh blinked, glanced back at the photograph still in Gwen's hand, then looked down, focusing on the Cannon.

“If all else fails, I'll try to contact the Doctor. I probably should anyways, let him know there's two 'facts' now.” He cast a pointed look at Rex.

“The Doctor- I know him,” Ianto spoke up. “He's married to Rose- ah, Commander Tyler.”

Gwen shot a panicked look to Jack before he spoke. “That'll be the meta-crisis, not the original Doctor.”

“Are you sure, Jack? If he's off in another universe, then that explains why he never showed up...” Gwen protested. Rhys nodded. He didn't know much about this 'Doctor', but what he did know lead him to believe that he wouldn't have left the Earth alone to deal with not only the 456, but Miracle Day.

“The Doctor can't be everywhere,” Jack disagreed softly, glancing quickly at Ianto before he looked back at Gwen. “It's a big universe. And he doesn't just have the entire universe _now_ ; he has the entire universe from the start to the end. All of time, all of space. And he tries to save everyone. He's a busy man.”

“Then how do we get a hold of him?” Gwen asked impatiently. 

“I have absolutely no clue.”


	2. POSTCARD / I've Been Meaning To Write

Because the man whom served my espresso this morning  
looked like you. In a certain light, I peered through  
the bronze keyhole and saw the Basilica framed by fire.  
Because I miss you even as I try to efface you,  
like the lunatic who smashed David’s genitals with a hammer.  
My apartment is dark and laundry  
hangs in sad heaps on the balcony.  
-POSTCARD / I've Been Meaning To Write, by Kara Candito

/./

If one thing could be said about the Doctor, it was that he could make an entrance.

Not always (rarely) at the right place, sometimes (always) at the wrong time, but wherever he did turn up, it was usually impressive.

This would be no exception.

“So, Ponds, where do you want to go? Forward, back, sideways?” The Doctor questioned his companions as he spun around the console.

Amy turned to look at Rory, who shrugged. “How 'bout you pick, Doctor?” she decided.

The Doctor grinned. “Well, there is this fantastic planet, settled by some of the first off-world human colonists. Made to be a sort of whole planet museum of different religions, ended up being cultures instead. They named the planet 'The Museum'.” he grinned as he sent the TARDIS spinning out of the Vortex, towards his destination.

When they landed, he ran forward, towards the door, then spun back to Amy and Rory. “I really hope this doesn't end up like The Library.”

“What happened in The Library?” Amy asked.

The Doctor winced. “Oh, that was the first time I met your daughter,” he said lightly.

“What, did she shoot you or something?” 

“Why would you say that?”

Rory spoke up. “Probably because of the face you're making?”

The Doctor shrugged. He couldn't tell them about the day their daughter died. “It wasn't a good day.” he said instead, then pushed open the door, hoping to distract them from more questions with a new planet.

Instead, he distracted them with the Torchwood Hub and six (maybe seven, depending what Rhys decided) Torchwood agents, all staring in shock.

..

Rex was the first to break the shocked silence. “What the hell is that?” he asked loudly. As the door to the blue box swung open to expose a young man with brown hair and a bow tie, he changed the question. “Who the hell is that?”

The man glanced around in confusion. “This isn't...” he trailed off in confusion, then his eyes locked onto Jack. “Ah. Hello, Jack.”

“Doctor? Where are we?” a female Scottish voice questioned from inside the blue box. Then a red-haired woman pushed past the man. “I'm assuming this isn't 'The Museum'?” 

“Doctor, this is really good timing.” Jack exclaimed.

“That's the Doctor?” Gwen asked.

“That is not the Doctor I know.” Ianto commented.

“I've changed a bit since the last time I saw you two.”

“I'm only going to ask one more time, and then I'm going to shoot you-” Rex began, but was cut off by the Doctor.

“I'm the Doctor, this is Amy and Rory Pond, this is my TARDIS, who are you?” 

“Rex. Rex Matheson. You're the Doctor?” he turned to Jack. “The one you just said we needed to find, but had no idea how?”

Jack shrugged. “What can I say?”

“Well, you could start with why you apparently needed to find me,” the Doctor told him.

“Two things, really,” Jack began lightly. “First, we accidentally turned Rex here immortal by filling him up with my blood-”

“What?”

“And second, we have three people from another dimension and a broken Dimension Cannon.”

The Doctor blinked. “Yes, well, you would need me for that, wouldn't you?” he glanced around. “Ah- who here isn't from this universe?” 

“Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper... Ianto Jones.” Jack pointed to each of them in turn.

“Hold on- no, I know him. He's from here, isn't he?” 

“No. The Ianto... the Ianto from this universe is dead.”

The Doctor studied his old friend for a long moment, then turned to his companions. “Ponds, why don't you get to know the Torchwood staff? These one's aren't evil. Probably. If you see any big, white rooms, call for me.” he turned back to Jack. “Where is this Dimension Cannon you say is broken?”

Tosh stepped forward to hand him the Cannon, which had stopped smoking but didn't look functional in the least.

“Ah. Right, then. That is definitely broken. Come along, Jack.” then he stepped back into the TARDIS.

Jack rolled his eyes and followed him.

“You've changed the TARDIS. I don't like it.” 

The Doctor looked up from the console. “Yes, well, I blew it up last time I regenerated.”

“How longs it been, Doc?” Jack asked softly. “Since the Daleks stole the Earth?”

“Two hundred years or so.” he said absently, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the Cannon.

“Never thought to drop by?” he questioned jokingly. 

“I've been sort of busy. Besides, haven't seen anyone from before with this face. Well, except River, but she wasn't exactly 'from before'.” he frowned at the Cannon. “Jack, this thing is completely fried.” he turned to his friend. “It's completely fried, and the hole in the universe it came through has already closed up. You've travelled time long enough to be able to feel that reality is... well, delicate, at best, right now. If we rebuild this, and try to send them back...”

“What would it do?” he prompted as the Doctor trailed off.

“It would cause two universes to collapse.” he told him seriously.

“Of course it would,” Jack sighed, looking around. “So, what do we do?”

“I'm sorry, Jack, but they have to stay here.”

“You can't ask them to do that. They have family, and friends over there!”

“I know. And I'm sorry. But you have to make sure they stay away from their families here. We don't want them running into themselves, even if it is not technically themselves. It might not cause a paradox, but it will get tricky explaining. You don't have to worry about that with Ianto, as, apparently, there isn't a him in this universe anymore.”

“There isn't an any of them in this universe, anymore, Doc. Tosh and Owen used to work here. They were killed.”

“Ah.” he paused, fiddling with his bow-tie. “Well, then... that should be easier, they already have identities here. Just use Torchwood to make them not-dead, officially, and if you can come up with a convincing story, they can see their families.”

Jack laughed disbelievingly. “You act like its so easy!”

“Well, its not the most difficult thing either of us has dealt with.”

“You aren't taking emotions into this, Doctor! Who knows how different their lives are in the other world!”

“None of them know you.” the Doctor said softly. “That must be very difficult, especially in Ianto's case.”

“Did you ever wonder why I was off-planet, drinking hyper-vodka in some dingy space bar?”

“I was a bit confused.”

“I lost everything, Doctor. My home. My entire team, except Gwen. I lost- I lost Ianto. I sacrificed my grandson.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“Because if I didn't, ten percent of he worlds children would of been used as drugs for a species we only know as the 456. Because you weren't there to help us.”

“I can't be everywhere. There is only one of me.” he paused. “Well, most of the time. And in this universe.”

“And Miracle Day? You didn't notice everyone on Earth suddenly couldn't die? Well, except me.” he chuckled. “A taste of mortality. Didn't like it much.”

“I'm sorry. But I've been a bit busy, Jack! I had to save Amy from the Silence, then I had to find their daughter, then I found out that their daughter was part Time Lord-”

“What?”

“Then I had to marry their daughter so she would kill me. Then I needed to die.”

Jack stared at the other man for a long, long time before he spoke. “You got married?!” 

“Yes. Sort of. It's complicated. Now, can we please get back to the task at hand?” he requested, nodding to the door, where, on the other side, three people were about to be told that they could never go home.

..

“So... how did I... how did the Tosh you know die?”

Gwen looked towards Tosh. “You were shot. But even though you were dying, you went down fighting. Saved a lot of lives.”

“Well, I'm glad I didn't get hit by a car or something.”

The Welsh woman smiled weakly at her. It was... amazing how similar this Tosh was to the woman she had worked with, saved the world with. Although, she supposed they were sort of the same person. Just... not.

She needed to keep thinking this Tosh as a completely different person, or it would be that much harder to loose her friend again when Jack and the Doctor sent them back.

She couldn't imagine how hard this must be for Jack. Tosh was a friend- a great friend, her best friend, even- but Ianto had been Jack's... something. The man he loved. The man he lost in a horrible, horrible way. Worse than how they had lost the others, even though she knew Jack held so much guilt for his brothers actions. But it had been Jack who lead Ianto into the room with the 456, Jack who couldn't save Ianto from the poison. 

In Jack's mind, he had killed Ianto. 

..

Amy, Rory, Owen, and Rex were sitting in the conference room, silent.

“So...” Rory said once he couldn't take it any more. “You're immortal?”

Rex turned to look at him. “Yeah. Thanks to Harkness.” he sounded annoyed.

“How the hell did you pull that off?” Owen asked.

“I got a metal pole through my chest. And his blood was the only way to make everyone mortal again. We figured it would be safe inside me. Kill two birds, one stone.”

Owen rolled his eyes. “Bloody Torchwood.”

Rex laughed sharply. “Yeah, that sums it up.”

They fell back into silence once more.

“You're American,” Amy said after a few minutes.

“You're Scottish.” Rex shot back.

“You're brilliant, you are,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I mention it because we're in Cardiff. Why are you here?”

“Yeah, that's a good question. Dunno if I've ever met an American working for Torchwood.” Owen mused.

“I was CIA up until a few months ago.”

The awkward silence came back.  
“What's the other universe like, then?” Amy broke it once again.

Owen shrugged. “I've been here all of an hour- and I haven't been outside. I would guess its about the same, except that I'm not dead over there.”

Ianto stuck his head in. “The Doctor and Captain Harkness are done with the Cannon.”

..

“I can't fix it.” the Doctor told them. “And there is no way to send you three back without destroying both worlds.”

“What does that mean?” Tosh asked softly. She knew what it meant. She had been fairly sure that this would happen. But she needed confirmation.

The Doctor looked honestly remorseful. “It means, you can't go back to your universe. You're going to have to stay here.”

“Fantastic.” Owen commented dryly. “What are we supposed to do here, then?”

Jack shrugged. “Your- the alternate you's- homes and belongings have been kept by Torchwood, as well as whatever money they had.”

“You could work here, if you want.” Gwen added.

Jack nodded heavily. As much as it might hurt to see replica's of them every day, they had been Torchwood in the other universe, and they needed jobs. And he needed a doctor, tech expert, and... well, Ianto could do whatever he wanted here, much as he had done before.

Or, as the other Ianto had done. He was going to need to keep that straight in his head.

Knowing himself, keeping anything straight was going to take some effort.

Toshiko bit her lip, thinking. “Can I have some time to think about it?” she asked Jack.

Gwen jumped up before Jack could respond. “Of course, Tosh.” she assured her. “Take as long as you want.”

“Well, I'm taking the job,” Owen told them. “Its better then any other doctor job. Most of my patients are dead.”

Gwen looked to the last parallel. “Ianto?” she prompted softly.

The young Welshman looked unsure. “Ah... I've been working for Torchwood for years. But I've been working for London.” he looked away. “From what I understand, there is no Torchwood London, here.”

“How'd you know that?” the Doctor asked, curious.

Ianto shrugged. “Rose- Commander Tyler- mentioned it. Once or twice.”

The Doctor smiled, although it looked fairly sad and slightly forced. “Oh course.” he muttered, then glanced around. “Ponds! Not much we can do here, I'm afraid, Jack,” he told his old friend. “We're probably just getting in the way, here- we'll be off.”

Rex scowled. “What, just gonna leave us here with them?”

Jack and Gwen matched his expression, directing it back at the American. 

“Amy, give them your mobile number.” the Doctor directed. “That way, if you need more help, you can call. But, honestly, there's nothing I can do.”

Amy handed Jack her number. Jack resisted joking about married women giving him their numbers. “You know, the TARDIS has a phone. Couldn't you just give me that number?” he asked instead.

“No. That is reserved for emergencies. And I have a feeling that you, Captain Harkness, would ring if you couldn't find your shoes.”

Rhys laughed loudly at that, grinning at the Doctor. “I think he's got you pegged, mate.”

The Doctor grinned back, then turned to Rex. “I'm sorry, but I can make you mortal again as much as I can make Jack mortal. Which is to say, I can't.”

Rex grimaced. “So, I'm stuck with World War Two here for eternity?” he clarified.

He shrugged. “I don't know. I've met Jack in the future, but you weren't there. Possibly, your immortality is temporary.” he sighed. “We'll have to wait and see. But, as I said, there's nothing more I can do here. So, goodbye.”

The Doctor moved towards the TARDIS doors, opening it and waving farewell to Torchwood, before stepping in and waiting for his companions.

Amy shook her head. “It's been nice meeting you all,” she told them. 

Rory nodded in agreement, then awkwardly copied the Doctor, slipping into the TARDIS. Amy followed.

The Torchwood and maybe-Torchwood agents watched as the only hope they had to return the three back to their proper dimension faded away, the grinding noise of the TARDIS fading with the beautiful blue box.


	3. R Alcona to J Brenzaida

No other sun has lightened up my heaven;  
No other star has ever shone for me:  
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given –   
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.  
-R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida by Emily Bronte

/./

“You have no idea how great it is that you're taking the job,” Gwen told Owen as she showed him the new medical bay. “I've been basically stalking doctors looking for someone as good as you.”

“No such thing. I'm the best.” he grinned smugly at her, while Gwen rolled her eyes. Then his smile faded into a serious expression. “So,” he began. “How'd I die?”

Gwen paused. “Saving the world,” she answered evasively.

He snorted. “Seriously, Gwen- how'd I die?”

She looked away. “Which time?” she asked after a moment.

“What'da mean?”

“First time, you- he- got shot. Then... he was resurrected. He was around for a short time after that, then he saved the world from radiation poisoning by locking himself in with it. He... turned to dust.”

Owen was silent for a long time. “I'm going to try to not do that again,” he told her lightly after a while.

Gwen couldn't help it, she laughed. “Lets try, alright?”

Owen grinned, and trailed his eyes along her body. “Hey, can I ask- you and me- him- did we- you- ever...” he made a suggestive gesture.

Gwen scowled. “None of your business. And I'm a married woman now, so you can put those thoughts out of your mind.”

“I'll take that as a yes.” Owen chuckled. “Don't worry, I wont mention it again. Jesus.”

..

“What about family?” Tosh asked nervously, glancing around the conference room, all seven of them sitting around the table, Anwen in Rhys's arms. 

Tosh and Owen had been fairly shocked to find out there was a baby in the Hub, although Ianto had said something about London's Torchwood having a daycare, which had made Owen point out that One was a lot less likely than Three to be invaded by aliens.

“That's a good question. Now, I've not got anyone back there, but if there's some woman out there somewhere, my mum or wife or something, I'd like to know, so I can avoid her.” he said.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Owen, you do have a mother, as far as I know, but you haven't spoken to her in years. And definitely no wife.” he resisted the urge to glance at Tosh. 

“You have a few family members, Tosh, but you don't see them much.” Gwen told her, then turned to Ianto. “You have a sister, a brother-in-law, and their children, a niece and a nephew.”

“Rhiannon, Johnny, Mica, and David?” he asked. “Or are their names different?”

Gwen nodded, but looked confused. “Does that happen? People in alternate worlds having different names?”

Ianto shrugged. “One of the men who came from this world, his double was named Ricky, whereas he was Mickey.”

Jack looked up at that. “Mickey Smith?”

“Yes, that's him.”

The immortal grinned widely. “He works here, occasionally.”

“Comes with his wife, Martha. They're usually freelancers, though.” Gwen added, taking her daughter out of Rhys's arms absently.

Ianto wanted to ask them about Lisa, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. They hadn't mentioned her, hadn't mentioned any sort of wife or girlfriend. If she didn't exist in this world, or didn't know him, had never met him- he didn't know what he would do with that. If she had never met him, should he track her down?

But, then, he knew that alternate versions of people could be very different. He had the proof in the differences between his world's Jackie Tyler and the one that had shown up afterwards with a daughter and entirely different personality to prove that.

If his kind and loving Lisa was like the first Mrs. Tyler here, he wasn't sure he would ever want to meet her.

So he filed the question away until he could deal with the worst possible answer.

“Speaking of the old Smith and Jones, we might want to call them in, eh?” Rhys pointed out, breaking Ianto out of his contemplation. “Tell 'em bout the three of 'em?” he nodded towards the alternates. “Case they show up out of the blue. I dunno bout any of you, but I'd be a bit shocked to find three old friends I thought were dead wanderin' around, alive as ever.”

Jack considered this. “It is pretty shocking”

Rex frowned. “Speaking from experience?”

Jack shrugged. “Several, actually. Comes with being as old as I am. Things tend to happen more than once.”

He rolled his eyes. “Great. More things to look forward to.”

“Now, see you mentioned that before- immortality.” Owen commented. “What's that about?”

Jack grimaced. He really didn't like explaining. Rex did not have the same problem.

“Thanks to him,” he pointed his thumb at the Captain, “I'm apparently immortal now.”

Gwen sighed. “If you're not immortal, Rex, how do you explain getting shot and dying, and still being around to talk about it? Or that Weevil last week? Ripped your throat out, it did.”

Tosh, Owen, and Ianto were staring at them with wide eyes. Jack realized they were acting like they were the same people they had known for years, and knew immortality as something they saw at least once a month.

“Right! Well, I know teleportation without a shield can be pretty tiring, never mind travelling through the void, so- we should probably show you three where you live. Gwen, drive Tosh to her flat, Rex, you've got Owen, and Rhys, Ianto.” he stood. “I'll get the addresses from their files.”

Walking back to his office, he wondered why he was going to stay here- having to take care of the call to Martha, and probably watch Anwen, too- instead of driving one of them. He knew why he wasn't driving Ianto- the pain of driving to Ianto's home with a man who looked and acted like Ianto but wasn't would be incredibly painful. And to simply drop him off and not go inside, order takeout or cook and then go to bed... unthinkable.

He was fairly positive that if he tried hard enough, he could begin a relationship with this new Ianto. He had done it before, and this Ianto seemed very similar. They all did. Plus, this time there would be less hanging over their heads, Cybergirlfriends and lies gone. 

It wasn't fair to him, though- beginning anything with a look-a-like to the man he loved (yes, still) would be little more than using him. And there was the you-will-grow-old-and-die-while-I-stay-young-and-never-age thing, the I-am-a-grandfather-or-at-least-I-used-to-be thing, and the I-still-call-your-sister-every-few-months thing. Even if she wasn't really his sister, but the other one's.

Fuck, this was confusing.

Jotting down the addresses on three separate notes, he went to grab each homes key, just as Rex entered the room, obviously tired of socializing.

Realizing Ianto's key was not where it was supposed to be kept, he froze.

“Something the matter?” Rex asked. Despite being annoying and rude, he sounded concerned. He had seen Jack pull that face only a couple times, and whenever he did, the world almost ended or Gwen nearly ripped their heads off.

He had seen the woman shoot a helicopter with a bazooka from a moving vehicle. It stayed with you.

“I-” Jack sounded slightly choked. “Ianto's key isn't in here.”

Rex rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You don't have a key to his place, that's your big worry? Just pick the lock.”

Jack turned to glare at him. “I have a key,” he explained. He pulled out a key ring from his pocket, easily picking one off and showing it to Rex. “This is his key.”

“Why is it on your key chain?” he asked.

Now Jack rolled his eyes. “Because it's mine, Rex."

“I thought you said it was his?”

“Its the key to his home, its my key.”

Rex narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I don't get it.”

“Seriously?” Jack asked. “You can't figure that out yourself?” he sighed. “Once upon a time, I stayed at Ianto's as much as I stayed in my own place. It just made sense to have my own key.”

The American man raised his brows in surprise. “So, what- that guy in there is your boyfriend?”

Jack's face darkened. “That man in their is an alternate version of my dead... boyfriend... who's never met me.”

“Oh.” was all Rex could say. He had been in and seen some pretty messed up relationships in his life, but once again Torchwood had succeeded in making everything ten times more complicated and screwed up. “But shouldn't he know the- alternate you?”

Jack shook his head. “There is no me in that world.”

“How on Earth can you know that?”

“My old friend Rose told me- she lives in that universe. Crossed over a couple years ago, when the Daleks stole the Earth. They had made the walls between the worlds thin enough to travel through.”

“Goddamn Daleks.” Rex shivered involuntarily. Most of the world had written off the sudden darkness and planets in the sky, during the invasion of homicidal saltshakers. He, on the other hand, had been one of the CIA agents campaigning for some sort of fighting back, instead of just giving up like they had ultimately done. 

He had lost friends that day, and he was not a man that made or kept many friends. 

Jack nodded. “Rose looked me up, over there. I didn't exist.”

“Hold up- is that the same Rose Ianto keeps talking about?” he paused for a moment. “the parallel version of your boyfriend knows a friend of yours, who was from this world? How unlikely is that?”

He snorted. “Last time I was off-planet, I met this woman, River. She had my old blaster gun. Said she had taken it from a 'friend'. Now the Doctor shows up, telling me he married a woman named River. The universe is a huge place, but that doesn't stop it from being a small world.”

Gwen entered the room, holding Anwen, and handed her to Jack. “Look after her, and call Martha, already. Tosh and Ianto are exhausted, and Owen is getting on my nerves.”

Jack attempted to salute her, but remembered how hard that is with a child in your arms. “Yes ma'am,” he told her instead, grinning. Gwen rolled her eyes, grabbed the keys and addresses, and exited, Rex following her.

Jack sighed, sitting down and placing the youngster on his knee. “So, Anwen, lets call Martha.”

..

As they walked back to the others, Rex turned to Gwen. “I'm surprised Rhys leaves his daughter with Jack. I wouldn't leave a kid with him.”

Gwen shrugged. “He knows what he's doing. Better than Rhys and I do, probably. He's done it before, after all.”

“Done what? Babysat? So have I, and I know for a fact you would not leave Anwen with me.”

“No, been a father.”

“Harkness is a dad?”

Gwen stopped as they reached their destination. “He's a very old man, Rex. He's had many lives. Its not that surprising that he had children in some of them.”

Rex looked like he wanted to reply, probably ask more questions, but instead he shook his head and went to grab Owen and drive him to his new home.

..

Ianto entered his flat hesitantly, having said goodbye to Rhys in the car, who had nodded slightly awkwardly, then drove off.

He had expected the rooms to be empty, his belonging's- or, the other-him's belonging's- to be in a Torchwood storage unit, as protocol stated. 

Instead, it looked as if someone had just left that morning.

There were shoes by the front door, neatly lined up, and coats in the closet, a coffee maker with a bit of cold brew left in the pot. Even a dish in the sink, although it was clean.

For all the world, in appeared as if the person who lived here would walk through the door any second.

Then Ianto noticed the dust.

It covered most surfaces, and when he sat on the couch a cloud of it puffed out. He silently thanked the fact that, as an archivist, he was used to dusty things and was barely bothered by it. Although he wasn't looking forward to sleeping in a dusty bed.

When he entered the bedroom, however, he found it had been recently cleaned, and the bed was not dusty, but the sheets smelled like laundry detergent, and something else- something he knew he had smelled before, recently, but couldn't place.

He was too exhausted to think too much on the subject, and changed into clothing more appropriate for sleeping. He briefly wondered about the drawer full of clothing that clearly wasn't his, as the size was wrong.

Falling into the bed, he inhaled the mysterious scent deeply, letting it lull him into sleep.

Just as he lost conscientiousness, he realized that the smell was Jack's cologne, and the drawer was filled with Jack's clothing.

His last though was of the picture Gwen had shown him, of a double of him leaning into Jack's arms, looking happier than he had ever seen himself.

..

The phone rang once, twice, three times, and Jack sighed, willing Martha or Mickey to pick up their damn phones as he played peek-a-boo with Anwen, a game he knew the little girl loved.

He loved playing with her, honestly. He had always been good with kids, his exuberance and occasional immaturity delighting them. If that failed on the older kids, his greatcoat and a fantastical story about aliens or time travel, all true, would win them over.

Anwen was going to grow up to be an amazing, brilliant woman, he could tell that already. But as it was, she had said 'Jack' a week or so ago, and had pointed at him. If there was something he was glad about when it came to his lack of ageing and inability to stay dead, it was that he would be around to look after the child in his arms long after she was a child, and even after her own parents could.

“Hello?” Martha Jones' voice echoed out of the receiver. 

“Voice of a nightingale! Hello, Martha.”

“Jack! How are you? Hows Gwen?” Martha questioned.

“Good. We're good. But... there's been a sort of... not a problem, but- its a bit difficult to explain.” he told her slowly.

“You sound like the Doctor, mate.” Mickey Smith's voice informed him.

“Ah, Mickey Mouse. How're you doing?”

“You're avoiding something, Jack. What's going on?”

Jack shifted in his chair, ajusting his grip on Anwen. “Three people fell through from another universe today. Your ex-universe, in fact, Mickey.”

Mickey sounded shocked. “What? Pete's World? Are the walls breaking down again?”

“No. The Doctor said it was just a fluke. Small rip in the universes, a malfunctioning Dimension Cannon- the Cannon is broken beyond repair, and the rip sealed itself already. They're stuck here.”

“You saw the Doctor?” Martha asked, while her husband chimed in, “Why are you telling us this?”

“Yeah, I saw the Doctor. He's regenerated again. Looks even younger now! Remind me to tell you about him, next time you two are here.” he paused, running a hand across his face. “I'm telling you guys about this, because of who the people who came through are.” he paused once again. “We once again have a Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones alive in this universe.”

He heard Martha gasp, and even though Mickey had only ever met Ianto, and that was only for a short time, he heard a small intake of breath.

“Alive? Like, really alive?” Martha asked, and Jack immediately understood what she meant.

“They all have heartbeats. Even Owen.”

“They're alive. They're bloody-” she cut herself off with a sharp inhale. “We'll be there tomorrow, Jack. Right, Mickey?”

“Of course, babe.”

Jack chuckled. “You don't need to be, you two. They don't know you.”

“They probably know me, mate. Remember, I used to live in that world? Spent a lot of time with the Cardiff branch after my nan died.”

“And I want to check on you, Jack. This can't be easy.” Martha's kind voice was soft and understanding.

“You Jones women are too nice to me.” he commented, grinning as Anwen patted his face. He swore the child had inherited her mothers natural intuitive empathy. He was already fairly sure Gwen was a low-level empath.

“Well, someone has to look after you, Jack.” there was a loud noise from the background which sounded suspiciously like an explosion.

“What was that?” Jack asked.

“Nothing! Got to go! See you soon!” the line clicked as she hung up on him.

Jack stared at the phone for a moment, then shook his head, chuckling, and placed in down, and began playing with Anwen once again.


	4. Self-Portrait With An Ice Pick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a damn clue where most of this came from. The interesting thing about having alternate versions of the character's is that you can mess with their back stories and stuff all you want and it still works.

What the body  
wanted was its penance; scar, reminder that I   
could love anyone, gnash my teeth on their  
shoulder, then forget them in the subway car  
-Self-Portrait with an Ice Pick by Kara Candito

/./

Tosh wasn't sure what she was expecting, but an exact replica of her home in the other universe wasn't it. Never the less, that's what she found after Gwen dropped her off, helpfully carrying a bag of clean clothing and bedding that had apparently been sitting around the Hub- she wasn't at all sure why they had clothing in her size.

She also was not expecting to find it full of her belongings. Torchwood protocol said it would be empty.

Gwen grinned sheepishly. "We didn't have the heart to clean it out, at first, then we didn't have time- then we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it."

Tosh blinked at her. "That's-" she cut herself off. "I can understand that." she finished. After a long moment of silence, Tosh elaborated. "We lost a team member to the Cybermen. We were very close. I couldn't empty out her flat- Suzie and Owen had to do it alone."

"I'm sorry." Gwen told her quietly.

Tosh pulled a smile onto her face. "Don't be. Mary died how she wanted to- fighting to save the world."

Gwen stared at her, wide-eyed. "Mary?" she questioned, visions of a glowing, floating alien who had found her way into Tosh's heart before Jack had killed her falling past her eyes. "She wasn't an alien, by any chance?"

Tosh looked confused. "Ah- no. She was very much human." she sighed. "That's why you- the other you- and I got along so well. We both lost our partners to the Cybermen."

Gwen looked down. "I wish I could tell you there was a Mary alive, here, like Rhys is still alive."

She began to say something, but was cut off by a large yawn. Gwen smiled softly. "I'll let you get your rest, Tosh. I'll see you soon."

After Gwen left, Tosh looked around. Well, she could very well get some sleep- probably the best idea- or she could go out, find somewhere that sold coffee, and discover if the pubs in this universe were the same as hers. Tomorrow, she could find out about the clubs.

The later sounded much more fun.

..

Owen liked Rex, he decided. The American man was as annoying as he was, and that was saying something. He worked hard to be annoying. It was the best way to keep his coworkers from looking too closely at him and his feelings.

Owen did not, however, like the fact that Rex more or less shoved him out of his car with his bag and house key. He was bloody lucky Owen didn't fall right into the sidewalk, because if that had happened, he might have had to throw a rock after the car, and his aim was pretty good.

Instead, he had to settle for glaring at him as he drove away.

Once to got inside, he was slightly amazed. By the fact that the place wasn't empty, by the things that it was filled with, by the view. It was... well, amazing.

It was also decidedly not him. It was who he pretended to be, yes, but as he never had anyone over to his place, he had never felt the need to keep things- like this. He wondered what Tosh would think of this place.

This morning he hadn't really ever had to consider whether he believed in parallel universes, and now he was living in one.

He didn't really mind, honestly. There had been no one for him back home, no family or friends. Well, Tosh. He liked to consider her a friend. But she was here with him.

And with that thought, he felt incredibly selfish. Tosh had family and friends back there. Tosh had lost an entire life. He hoped her new home still had things in it. He hoped it wasn't as foreign to her and his was to him.

Selfishly, he hoped that she would become closer to him, now that he was the only one she had left from her world.

Because Owen Harper was in love with Toshiko Sato.

..

Because Owen Harper was in love with Toshiko Sato, he was not surprised when the cell phone Rex had supplied him with started ringing at two in the morning, with a not very sober Tosh on the other end, asking for a ride. Because Tosh knew that he would do anything for her, including picking her up from some pub in the middle of the night.

Although, every time he had done that before (or picked her up from some guys or girls flat), he had had a car. This time, he did not.

"Tosh, I can't pick you up. I don't have anything to pick you up in." he explained, sounding very exasperated. "Take a cab, I'm sleeping."

"You are useless." she had told him, then hung up. Even though he knew that Tosh got irritable with him- and only him- when she drank, he still didn't get much more sleep that night.

..

Gwen got back to the Hub first, collapsing into a chair in Jack's office. "Tosh dated a woman named Mary in the other universe, only she wasn't an alien and died fighting Cybermen. She also worked for Torchwood."

Jack looked surprised. "That's odd. But I guess a lot of little things will be different."

Gwen raised a brow. "Her girlfriend being a Torchwood agent who was killed by aliens instead of being an alien who kills humans is a little difference?"

"Okay, big differences, too." Jack conceded.

Gwen was stopped from responding by Rhys and Rex entering the Hub, arguing about... it sounded like they were arguing over what football/soccer was called. Not for the first time, Gwen missed Esther. This time she missed how she would simply inform Gwen the American word for something and leave it at that.

"You get them home safely?" Jack addressed both men, but he looked at Rhys, waiting for and wanting his answer more. Wanting to know how Ianto was.

"Owen is the most annoying prick I've ever met." Rex announced loudly. "But I got him home without strangling him."

"Ianto's home, too." Rhys told them simply.

Anwen stirred in the small wheeled cot that they had so they could put her to sleep and keep an eye on her, which was currently in the corner of Jack's office. "Speaking of home, we should probably get there," Gwen commented, looking to Jack for approval. He nodded.

"I'll call if anything tries to take over the world." he promised. "Rex, you go home too. Oh, and Martha and Mickey will be here tomorrow, she said."

Gwen nodded sharply, then gently picked up her child, while Rhys began gathering their things. Rex was already gone. Once they had everything, they bid farewell, and Jack watched Gwen, soldier, rebel, agent, leave that identity behind for the night and put on her wife and mother one. Both were equally true, and at times merged. He wished he could step out of his as easily.

..

The slab of stone is cold when he touches it, gently trailing his fingers along the name engraved there; Ianto Jones, it reads, Beloved by many and saviour of even more. He died saving the world. He will never be forgotten.

If it was at all possible to find any feeling besides sadness and pain looking at Ianto's grave, Jack would find it in the last words. He will never be forgotten- people say that, in obituaries and tombstones, but it was so much more true when it came to Ianto. For as long as Jack continued to live- not including the bits in between- he would remember him.

He sat down on the ground, back pressed against the stone. "You'll never guess what fell through the rift. Well, more like unwillingly rode the rift here. With the help of a Dimension Cannon." there was no response, but then again, if there was, it would mean he was loosing it. "Tosh and Owen. And you,"

Jack signed, looking at the grass he was sitting on. It was slightly damp, and he could see small droplets of water clinging to it from the last time it rained.

"They're from an different universe. Where Rose is. The other-you knows Rose. And he still works in London." he glanced up at the night sky.

"He's you, but he's not you. He looks at me, with your face... but he doesn't know me. I've never seen that before. Even the first time we met, you knew me. You were stalking me, you would know me. Not a very good stalker otherwise." Jack laughed softly at the memories of a Weevil, coffee, and a dinosaur.

"You should see Gwen. She's so happy. She's got her husband, her daughter, and now her dead friends are alive again. We offered Rhys a job, before this all happened. Still no answer from him. Then again, it was less than twelve hours ago. I don't know what exactly his job would be. Then again, we sort of gave up on specific jobs a while ago, didn't we? About the same time you started coming into the field with us. You would change everything, wouldn't you?"

Despite the obvious pointlessness of talking to a gravestone, Jack found himself doing this more than he knew he should since getting back to Cardiff and restarting Torchwood.

It wasn't comforting. In fact, every time he did it, he felt the pain of losing Ianto more keenly than ever.

He had managed to watch the man die three times. Three horrible times. Twice in his arms. That was more than any normal person could say about their lover.

The first was aboard the Valiant, during that year, that Year That Never Was. Saxon had sent Torchwood to the Himalayas, then picked them up and held them captive aboard his ship of terror. Each one as well contained at Jack, only leaving their cells to be brought to Jack, to be tortured in front of him, and eventually killed their deaths spread out through the year.

First Tosh, brave, beautiful Tosh, beaten and battered until she was hardly recognizable. She had locked eyes with Jack as the Master brought a knife to her throat, and there was no blame in her eyes. He had looked back at her, and promised that he would fix this.

The last thing she heard was a madman's (madtime-lord's?) laugh.

Then Owen, who had had an arm and a leg removed, due to his habit of kicking and punching the guards whenever he could. When the Master had pushed the barrel of a gun against his chest, he too had looked up at Jack, chained and helpless. And once again, Jack found no blame or hatred.

Then the trigger was pulled, and Owen spent the last minutes of his life swearing as loudly as he could well choking on his own blood.

After that, Gwen. He barely recognized her as the woman he had recruited, so long ago, and yet barely any time at all, and this time it was not because of torture. Most of hers had been mental. She had been taunted about her family, had been forced to watch the others as they were hurt and killed, had had her mind invaded by the homicidal Time Lord.

Right before the Master scrambled her mind so badly her body stopped knowing how to work, she had glared at him, again with no malice, only determination. "Fix this, Jack", she told him forcefully. "Save the world."

Then came Ianto. His beautiful, strong, stubborn Welshman who had lived through Canary Wharf, who had already witnessed a loved one being killed. Who had learned to desensitize himself against gore and death, having to take care of Lisa for all that time, who always had to take care of Torchwood's bodies, who routinely dealt with bodies ripped apart.

Ianto watched his boss, his lover, calmly through his swollen eye, the other one removed months ago. "You know what you have to do, Sir." he told Jack, and Jack immediately knew he was trying to mess with the Master's head. "When the time comes, do it. And end this madness."

The Master didn't like that, and forced the poison down his throat, before letting Jack loose from his restraints and leaving the immortal to cradle the man he had realized he was beginning to fall in love with against his chest.

.

The second time, Ianto had died choking on an alien poison gas, admitting his love and mourning that Jack would forget him.

.

The third time, he had once against died saving the world. And saving Jack from self-imposed eternal oblivion.

.

That seemed to be what Ianto was best at. Saving things. Saving Jack.

He could use some saving right about now.

Sighing out a pained breath, he stood up, grazing the headstone softly. The sun was coming up- he needed to get back to the Hub. He had requested the newest Rift Refugee's meet there every day, for now. There was a lot to figure out.

..

Losing the person you were planning on promising the rest of your life with is never easy.

It didn't matter, really, that both Tosh and Mary had known that the odds of one losing the other prematurely were incredibly high; no one in Torchwood Cardiff ever made it to retirement. They had both known that starting a relationship with a Torchwood agent was simply asking for heartbreak.

Neither gave a damn.

Mary was the first woman Tosh had ever been with- she had always had the feelings, the thoughts, towards women, but she had never felt strongly enough towards them to act on them, effectively changing the way she looked at herself and, more so, the way her parents looked at her.

But Mary had been beautiful, and carefree- something which everyone else at work seemed to lack- and had wanted Tosh as much as Tosh wanted her. Had kissed her a few days after joining Torchwood, and had asked her on a date a total of six times before she had agreed.

They had two years of happiness.

Then the Cybermen came, and everything went to hell. The entire world went to hell, and even though they weren't in London, they were Torchwood so they were in the middle of it, and the four of them had used the teleporter that Tosh had fixed to get to London as soon as they got the call.

Mary had not been converted, thank god, because that would have been even worse. At least they had been able to identify her body. At least she hadn't had to go through the torture of having her body ripped apart. At least she hadn't had everything that made her Mary be taken away.

Tosh was left with two choices, in her mind. The first was become hopelessly depressed and end up being fired, and therefor being given retcon, and therefor forgetting every amazing thing she'd seen and done at Torchwood- including Mary.

That was not going to happen.

The other was function like a normal human being at work, and in her free time, chase away her pain with alcohol and pretty men and women who only wanted a quick shag, because that was all she could give them.

That one sounded much more appealing.

She hasn't blamed Torchwood for her loss for a long time- never really did, most of her blaming was saved for Lumic, but there was the month or so right afterwards when she was furious at everything and everyone that could even vaguely be connected to that horrible event.

She doesn't told Torchwood responsible, which is why Tosh doesn't really understand why she asked for more time to decide whether she wanted to work for them here. She loved her job back home, and they were offering her the same position here- examine and learn alien technology, gorgeously complicated things which she would never have the ability to do if she didn't work for Torchwood.

And, really, the high mortality rate and threat of retcon wasn't the reason no one ever really left Torchwood. Because what could you possibly do, after you saw what the universe had to offer?

Standing in front of her bathroom mirror, making sure she didn't look like she had been drinking and shagging all last night, she nodded to herself. She knew what she would tell Captain Harkness when she went in today.


	5. Middlemarch

With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.  
-George Eliot, Middlemarch

/./

"Did everyone manage okay last night, then?" Rhys asked as everyone gathered in the conference room.

Everyone looked like they had a very bad night, honestly, except for Rex, who mostly just looked like he didn't give a damn. Jack, Tosh, and Owen looked like they had barely slept, and while Ianto at least looked rested, he looked very confused. And he knew that Gwen and himself looked like parents to a young child.

His question was greeted by odd looks. He supposed it was an odd question, or, at least, any normal question would seem odd when things were decidedly not normal.

"I did decide that I'll take the job offer, Captain Harkness." Tosh announced.

"Just Jack, Tosh." he grinned. "And I'm glad to hear it. Welcome to this world's Torchwood." his gaze stayed steadily on her, refusing to shift to Ianto.

Gwen rolled her eyes and did it for him. "What about you, Ianto? You didn't really give us an answer, yesterday."

The young Welshman glanced at her, before his eyes moved over to Jack for a moment, curious and confused. Gwen wondered if Jack still had things in his house, or if he had moved them out when the Hub was livable again. "Like I said before," he began, looking back at her. "I've worked for Torchwood for years. I don't really know much else." he paused. "What would I do? I worked in the archives in London..."

"We don't have much of an archive. Not physical copies, anyways." Jack explained, somewhat awkwardly.

"We've only got the one's from the past month or so. The old ones were... exploded." Gwen elaborated.

"It would be nice if somebody was able to keep it from becoming like the one we had," Tosh added, looking to Owen.

He frowned. "Yeah, it was bad down there. Couldn't go in without disturbing something and causing an avalanche."

Jack smirked. "We had that problem too. Torchwood Three has had two archivist in its history, and the first died in the early 1900's." he shrugged.

Ianto looked appalled. "How did you find anything before computers?"

"Uh... we didn't. If someone needed to know something, they mostly just hoped I would know."

Gwen cleared her throat. "Jack," she pointed out. "We haven't explained your age."

"I'm very old." he said simply.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "I'll show you to the archives, Ianto."

/./

Weeks passed, with little to no incident. Tosh and Ianto had settled into their homes well, and Owen had moved to a smaller flat. The one he had lived in on the other world was inhabited, but he found one that suited him.

There had been a bit of chaos when they saw Rex come back from the dead, and again when they saw Jack, but they were Torchwood, after all, and adapted to the unusual fairly quickly.

No one had contacted any family members, and Jack hadn't spoke to Rhiannon since they had come through to this reality.

Things could be a lot worse. So, of course, they couldn't stay that way.

/./

Despite his earlier decision to avoid getting close to Ianto, Jack hadn't been able to stop himself. While they weren't close in the way he and the other Ianto had been- no dates, no sex, not even a quick kiss in a dark corner- Jack had had that kind of relationship with him before (before Cybermen and Suzie) and as much as he missed the dates and sex and kisses, if all he could have was a friendship, he wasn't going to turn it down.

Even though he still spoke to a gravestone, it was nice to have someone speak back, sometimes.

It was nearly a month and a half after the three of them had accidentally come over to this world, and Ianto was sitting in Jack's office, talking about Tosh, and how she had been looking exhausted the past week or so, and how- even though Owen had told them it was nothing to worry about- they were worried about her, when Gwen rushed into the office, pushing Jack out of her way as she reached to use his computer.

"Ah... Gwen?" Jack asked, confused. He glanced at Ianto, who mostly just looked amused, but found no answers. "Did Rex blow up your computer?"

"I think you should take a look at the CCTV for outside."

Jack looked at her, frowning, but did as she asked. He was expecting a horde of Weevils, maybe. Or a group on UNIT soldiers. Maybe some sort of giant alien. He was not at all considering the possibility of seeing his daughter. His mouth dropped open.

Ianto watched him, concern pulling at his brow. "Jack?" he asked, glancing at the screen. "Who's that?"

Jack gaped. "That's Alice. My daughter." Ianto's eyes widened in surprise. "She hates me." he explained further.

"What is she doing here?" Gwen asked.

"I don't know. Last I spoke to her, she called to tell me that if I showed up at Stephan's funeral she would kill me, and the same went if she ever saw me again."

"That's a bit harsh." Ianto observed.

"It's really not." he disagreed sadly. He stood up.

"What are you doing? You're no going out there, are you?" Gwen sounded frantic. "What if she kills you?"

Jack shrugged. "I'll come back. She knows that. Maybe she'll get a bit of closure."

"You can't just walk out there and let her kill you..."

"Yes, I can."

Ianto shook his head. "You can't actually. If she kills you up there, she'll be arrested. And dozens of people will see you revive."

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jack sighed. "Then what do you suggest I do? I'm not hiding down here while she's up there."

"I'll go with you."

He glared at the younger man. "And if she kills you? What then?"

"I'll go, too." Gwen suggested.

"If she's willing to kill Ianto and myself, why would one more person stop her?" he shook his head. "Trust me, Alice is more than capable of killing. She's my daughter." he paused. "And you should have met her mother."

"Bring Rex, then." Gwen said. "He's bothering Tosh, anyways."

Glancing between his two employee's, Jack realized he didn't have much of a choice. Not for the first time, he simultaneously wondered at the fact that he had people who cared this much for him, and cursed that they put themselves in danger to protect an immortal man. Alice could rip him apart, into a thousand tiny bits, and he would be fine.

"How bout I just bring Rex?" he suggested halfheartedly as Ianto automatically helped him put on his coat.

Gwen and Ianto exchanged a glance. They didn't even bother answering him, and he shook his head as he exited his office, calling Rex with him as they left the Hub.

/./

Alice Carter looked exhausted, and like something was physically chewing off her limbs. But somehow, she looked calmer than Jack had thought she would. Definitely not homicidal.

When she saw the four Torchwood agents approaching, she smiled nervously and met them half way.

"Hello, dad." she looked at the others curiously. "Gwen."

"Ianto, Rex, this is Alice. My daughter." Jack sounded as exhausted as she felt. "Sorry. They insisted on coming with me."

"I didn't. Can I go back inside?" Rex asked. Alice was surprised to find he was American.

"No." Gwen snapped.

"I know you're wondering why I'm here." she began, her voice wavering. "Since I told you... if I ever saw you again..." she took a deep breath. "I was wrong to say that. I was angry, and in mourning."

"You had every right." Jack disagreed. "Just as you have every right to follow through on that threat."

"Jack-" Ianto and Gwen objected simultaneously.

Alice shook her head. "You didn't do what you did lightly. And if you hadn't, someone else would have." she paused. "You're the only family I have left, dad. My friends- none of them can understand what I went through. What I'm going through. And now-" her voice broke. "Stephan's father is back."

Jack went rigid, and his face turned to anger as he looked around, as if the man who had been lucky to leave Cardiff with all his body parts would be standing nearby, watching them.

"What did he do?"

Alice shook her head. "He hasn't hurt me. But- he's been calling, threatening me, dad. The only thing that ever really kept him in check was Stephen, and now that he's gone- I'm afraid of what he'll do."

"Did you go to the police?" Gwen asked softly, putting a comforting hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"No. Nothing they can do."

"Well-"

Jack shook his head. "Actually, Gwen, there is nothing they could do."

"Last time, the only reason he left was because you scared the life out of him." Alice summoned a small smile at that memory. "Put the fear of Torchwood into him."

"He will never hurt you, Alice. I promise that." Jack swore.

His daughter smiled at him, a small, timid, smile, not at all like the woman he had known before. But it was something he had seen on his own face. He had lost children over his long life. He matched her smile with his own.

She sighed, a tiny and relieved sound, and stepped into his arms. For a moment, it was like she was a little girl again, before her mother had left him, when he had been working for days, trying to stop aliens from taking over the world, and had finally come home.

Then he noticed she was shivering, and it was really quite cold out here. "Come on," he told her gently. "Lets go inside, and you can tell me more about what's going on, so we can figure out how to make him go away, for good."

As Jack let Alice towards the Hub, followed by Rex and Gwen, Ianto stood back, wondering if a mother could ever actually forgive someone who ended their child's life, even if it was the only thing to do, like Gwen had said.


	6. Forever - is composed of Nows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so not happy with this chapter, but I don't think its possible to tweak it anymore, and the idea of rewriting the entire thing terrifies me, mostly because I'm pretty sure it would end up exactly the same. SO. I'm sorry.

From this – experienced Here –  
Remove the Dates – to These –  
Let Months dissolve in further Months –  
And Years – exhale in Years –  
Without Debate – or Pause  
-Forever – is composed of Nows- by Emily Dickinson

/./

"Joe came back to Cardiff about a month ago, but he didn't contact me until a week ago."

The Torchwood team had gathered in the conference room, and at Jack's prompting, had been explaining her reason for being there. Most of them had already agreed to help, Rex and Owen being the obvious exceptions, and they were only resisting out of habit.

"What happened?" Gwen prodded gently, her large eyes softening.

"First, he... he seemed calmer, and we talked about Steven for a while. I thought that he might have changed, that loosing his son might have taken the anger out of him." she shook her head. "I don't know what I was thinking. He mentioned he was going to be in town for business, so we agreed to have coffee, just to catch up."

Jack looked fairly murderous, not that he had looked much else since he had discovered his former son-in-law was back.

"When we met, it was... nice, at first. Nothing bad happened for almost an hour. Then he got angry."

"About what?" Rex asked.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Nothing. Just like the old day, one moment everything was fine, the next he's screaming at me about nothing. They kicked him out of the cafe, and another customer walked me to my car. But Joe kept calling, and every time he's been getting worse. He's started openly threatening me."

Gwen looked slightly confused. "Why can't the police help with this?"

Alice exchanged a look with Jack, who sighed. "Joe isn't exactly..." Alice began.

"Human." Jack finished, glancing at the shock on his teams faces.

"You married an alien?" Owen asked her.

"Well, I'm not..." Alice trailed off awkwardly.

"She's my daughter. Which makes her only about 98 or 99 percent human."

Owen groaned. "She's not immortal too, is she?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "No, Owen. Just, where I come from, there are very few fully human people."

"Is there maybe a file full of all your weird little secrets? Just so I can talk to you without discovering massive secrets."

Ianto thought that would be nice, but sincerely doubted Jack would do that. He let them know his personal secrets as needed. He imagined they all did. He hadn't told them about Lisa. Maybe he never would.

"What species is Joe?" Gwen asked, ending Owen and Jack's bickering before it could begin.

"Uhm... I don't know the name. He passes for human, quite well, actually. But, he... he's stronger than he should be. And I'm not sure, but I think he can move things with his mind."

"He can. He's a Varlet. I've met more than a few, back in the agency." Jack flipped open his wrist strap. "When he told you he wasn't human, I took a DNA sample."

"That was years ago." Alice remarked.

"Yeah, DNA was barely in use back then. But I have the advantage of future knowledge." He grinned, and his eyes locked with Ianto, his grin widening when he noticed the Welshman was smiling too, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

Alice noticed the exchange, too. She filed it away for later.

"So... Varlet. Why did he come here? Fall through the rift?" Tosh asked.

"Nah. He came here of his own free will. They have a bit of a reputation as travellers. They latch onto anyone with means of transport, leave home, never come back. Sometimes they end up stranded somewhere, and try to make a life." Jack suddenly grew serious. "But the one's that end up on Earth are usually fugitives."

"What? Why do they come here?" Rhys asked.

"Does anyone remember a couple years back, when that hospital vanished, and everyone that was there reported it had been taken to the moon?" Rex, Alice, Rhys, and Gwen all nodded.

Gwen looked to the three from Pete's World. "Did that happen, in the other world?"

"Yes..." Tosh trailed off.

Ianto added, "In our world, when the hospital came back, only one person was still alive. Everyone else had suffocated."

Jack nodded sombrely. "Of course. The Doctor wasn't there." He realized.

"But the survivor did report that they were on the moon. And a bunch of Rhino's invaded." Owen added. "I think they put him in the looney bin."

Jack smirked slightly. "Those were the Judoon. Intergalactic police. They don't have clearance to come to Earth to pursue criminals. So its a good hiding place, as long as you can pass as human, and the Judoon don't get tricky and pull the building you're in to the moon. But, generally, they aren't tricky. Not a very bright species."

"Okay, so... Joe might be a fugitive." Rex mused. "Could we just hand him over? That would end your problem, Mrs. Carter."

"That's a good idea," Jack agreed.

"If he is, in fact, wanted. If he simply crashed here and decided to make a life..." Ianto reminded them.

"Right," Jack nodded. "I'll try and contact the intergalactic police. See if they know of him. The DNA sample will he helpful."

"Never say that stealing someone's genetic makeup and keeping it for years on end is simply creepy with no purpose," Owen joked.

..

"What do you think of Mrs. Carter?" Ianto asked Tosh later that day, as they sat in a rare quiet moment in the Hub. Jack and Rex had driven Alice home, and no one really expected they would be back for a while. Jack would probably insist they keep at eye out for Joe.

"She asked you to call her Alice, you know," Tosh reminded him with a small grin.

"What do you think of Alice, then?"

"Seems like a nice woman who has had to go through a lot of pain, lately. And she seems very much like Jack's daughter."

Ianto nodded. "She did remind me of him."

Tosh turned to look at her computer screen intently. "Maybe you should ask her out, then."

He gaped at her for a moment. "Why on Earth would I do that?" Ianto asked.

"Well," Tosh suppressed a small smile. "She reminds you of Jack."

Ianto didn't reply at first. "I know that the Ianto Jones born in this world was... involved... with Jack-"

"I think they were in love," Tosh told him bluntly.

He frowned. "Maybe." he thought back to the drawer of clothing in his dresser that he knew belonged to Jack, how his bed linens had smelt like Jack the first night he had been in this world, before he had changed them. "Probably. But I-"

"I know. That's why I'm saying... you know. Female Jack."

Ianto snorted. "Even if I thought Jack wouldn't shoot me if I were to ask out his daughter, I don't think she's in any sort of place to date. Her son, and now her alien ex might very well want to kill her." he shook his head. "Also, she's not really my type."

"Really? I thought she was really hot." Tosh put in her opinion.

Gwen, who had caught the last few moments of the conversation, paused at Tosh's words. True, the Tosh she had worked with had had the relationship with Mary, and she knew very well that this Tosh was openly equally attracted to both women and men- although she was happier to put a label to her sexuality than Jack was- it was still a bit odd for her to hear Tosh talk like that.

It was these subtle differences that she was slowly noticing in the three from the other world that was making her question what more could be different. It also made her wonder what she was like in that world. All she knew was that Rhys had died when Cybermen had attacked, and she had never left the police, instead being a liaison officer with Torchwood. And she had no clue if that was official, or if she was like Andy.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know- in the world Tosh, Ianto, and Owen knew, Rhys was dead, and Anwen had never been born. Those two facts made her fairly sure that she never wanted to know that world. There was no way a world without her daughter and husband was a good world.

"We found a record of the ship Joe probably came here on," Gwen informed Ianto and Tosh, shaking herself out of her pondering. "It didn't crash, but it did leave before Torchwood or UNIT could get to it."

"So he could have been stranded here, or dropped off to hide." Ianto concluded.

"Pretty much."

"So we didn't really learn anything."

"Nope."

"Any files about the Varlet people?"

Gwen sighed. "One. Basically saying exactly what Jack said."

"Fantastic." Tosh grumbled. "I've had no luck tracking him in the normal, human stalker way. He's very good at hiding."

"Which seems to point towards the fugitive theory." Gwen added.

"Does this seem... odd, to anyone else?" Ianto asked.

The two women looked at him, obviously expecting more.

"I just mean... something feels off."

"That would be an alien ex-husband stalker threatening Jack's daughter. The daughter that looks basically the same age as her dad." Owen concluded, joining the conversation.

"Not that. Well, yes, that's a bit odd, but-"

"A bit odd?" Owen repeated.

"Does this kind of thing happen much with Jack, Gwen?" Tosh asked nervously.

Gwen suppressed a smile. "Do Jack's children show up asking for our help often?" she shook her head. "This would be the first time. Although, you should be prepared for pretty much anything to happen when it comes to Jack."

While the others gossiped, trying to get Gwen to tell them stories of the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. And soon.


	7. i carry your heart with me

here is the deepest secret nobody knows  
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud  
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;  
which grows  
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)  
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart  
-i carry your heart with me (i carry it in) by e.e. cummings

/./

Ianto wasn't one to question his sexuality. Not exactly. He knew when he was attracted to someone, and he knew very early in his life that he could be attracted to a man as much as a woman. Although it was much, much rarer. And he had never voiced his attraction, let alone acted on it.

Although moving to London had introduced him to people much more accepting (or simply openly gay- Jake and Rickey being the first that came to mind. In the middle of waging a quiet war, they still held hands in front of the others, gave each other goodbye kisses, and Ianto had seen Jake after Rickey died- then was replaced by a look-a-like. They had been in love, and mostly everyone was okay with that) than the people he had grown up with, it was still an automatic impulse to stop the thoughts. Muscle memory.

From what he had seen of this world, they were even more accepting. Although he had mostly interacted with people who knew Jack, so they were used to... well, Jack. So his study pool may have been contaminated.

Which, of course, was the problem, wasn't it? Jack. Torchwood. This world's Torchwood Three was possibly the gayest work place he had ever encountered. Was anyone here actually straight? Ianto wondered.

He knew the story of Tosh's lover Mary, who had died in the Cyber attacks, and he knew Owen's reputation back in the other world, which was basically; he fell in love with women, but would shag men if they were up for it.

Gwen seemed the type to follow her heart, no matter what gender it lead her too. It just so happened that her heart lead to to Rhys.

And Jack... well. From what Gwen, Rhys, and Rex had told them, and what Ianto had seen himself, Jack hardly even noticed gender, or even species. He flirted boldly with everyone. Everyone including his own team, ignoring the fact that some were happily married.

Everyone, except Ianto. Instead of the lighthearted flirting Jack used to interact with everyone else, he watched the Welshman with old, somber eyes, and held him in deep conversations. Sometimes, Jack forgot he was talking with a different person than the Ianto he had known, and would reference something the new Ianto hadn't been around for.

Jack himself was usually very aware of Ianto. Where he was in the Hub, what he was thinking of the latest case. When his eyes were pointed at Jack.

Now, however, with Ianto sitting in his office, like he so often was these days, he couldn't read his expression.

"What?" Jack asked, laughing slightly, as the other man's gaze became too much.

"I'm just thinking about how strange it is for you to have a grown child."

Jack froze, then shook his head. "My first child died of old age a long while ago."

"Oh." Ianto looked away. "How do you do it?" he questioned softly.

"Do what?"

"Live? With everything... all that you've lost. All that you know you'll lose?"

Jack smiled softly. "I don't have much of a choice, do I? No cure for me."

"You make connections, though. Most people wouldn't. You have the ability to take off, travel the stars, never settle down. If you don't have anyone to lose..."

"You lose yourself." Jack finished. "I've tried that, you know. It didn't work. Sooner or later, you need someone. A friend, a family. You want it back, and in my case try to get it. I got it back with good timing and a bazooka. Although- Gwen, helicopter, bazooka... one of the more terrifying moments in my life."

"You gave Gwen a bazooka?" Ianto asked in horror. "I've seen what she does with a pistol. You gave her a cannon that shoots fiery explosives? While in a helicopter?"

"No, we were in a car. Gwen was shooting at the helicopter."

"I am very glad I wasn't there for that. Gwen... Jesus. She can be terrifying, you know."

Jack grinned. "You should have seen her when she first joined." His smile softened. "Didn't even know how to shoot a gun."

Ianto studied him for a moment. "Were you and her..." he trailed off suggestively.

"No. No, no. She was already with Rhys, had been for a while, when we met her."

"You seem close." He didn't add in, would her being in a relationship actually stop you?

Jack shrugged. "Yeah. Gwen and I- we've gone through a lot together."

Now Jack was doing that thing where he looked at him and saw someone else. Someone with the same face, same name, and as far as Ianto could tell from looking through the few personal things he had found in his home, a mostly same past. Just, his had more zeppelins and curfews and less Torchwood Three and drawers of Jack's clothing.

It was the especially pained look, today, so that meant that he was probably seeing more than one face staring back at him. How many, Ianto wondered? He knew the other Ianto, Toshiko, and Owen had been lost, and Rex had mentioned a woman named Esther once, and Gwen had gotten quiet- who else?

He himself had lost too many people in Lumen's attack. Most everyone he knew in London. Fellow Torchwood agents, people he knew in the Resistance, people he knew through Pete, hell, people who lived in his building. The girl who worked in the cafe less than a block away, who he had never even known the name of, but still remembered her bright smile and cheerful 'have a nice day!' that never sounded fake. The homeless man who he did know the name of, and who he had violently disliked due to his habit of trying to bite him.

Too many people.

There had been a Cyber attack against Torchwood, here, he knew- it was how Rose and Jackie had come to live in his world. From the way they spoke, not many had made it out alive. How many had Jack known?

They sat in silence for a moment longer, thinking of lost ones. Then Jack spoke again. "Are you ever going to call your sister?"

Ianto startled. "Uh..." he replied.

Jack shook his head. "I know. I'm not going to push. It's just... she called, again. Gwen answered. I don't know. Seeing Alice again... it has me thinking of family. Family you share DNA with, not the family you save the world with."

And that was interesting. Jack thought of his team as family? They did spend enough time together. Enough that the Welshman was bordering on having spent more time with them since he had fallen through dimensions then he had spend with his 'DNA family' in the first eighteen years of his life.

"Rhi is..."

"A force to be reckoned with? Terrifying? Fantastic?" Jack offered.

"That. And... well. A family woman. Unless she's not here...?" Ianto rubbed his temples. "That's another thing. Little differences in this world could change everything. I could know her as well as I know the other Rhiannon, or she could be completely different."

"Are people really all that different in alternate universes?" Jack mused.

"Oh, yes." Ianto replied immediately. Jack raised a brow, but before he could explain further, the alarm signalling someone entering the Hub went off, and Jack looked over to see Martha and Mickey entering.

Jack jumped up, and Ianto grinned. "See, he's an example of how you can be completely different in a different universe."

..

Ianto shook Mickey's hand, grinning. In this whole world of new people and new people with old faces, seeing someone he actually had known for years was nice.

"Ianto Jones," Mickey greeted him. "It's good to see you, man."

"Mickey," he grinned. "If I had had warning that I was going to be switching dimensions, I would have gotten messages from everyone. They miss you, you know."

"Yeah, well. Almost no one gets to choose when to move to a different universe."

"You did. Twice."

Mickey only grinned. "But they're all okay, yeah? Rose, and Jake? Jackie, Pete, Tony?"

Ianto knew that he would keep listing every person they both knew, so he just nodded. "Everyone is fine. How have you been?" he glanced down pointedly at the ring on the younger man's finger.

"Martha's a great girl," his lips twisted upwards in a loving smile as he turned to look at her, across the room, talking to Owen. "I'm real lucky to have found her, you know? There aren't that many people out there that can look at our crazy lives and listen to even crazier stories, and match them with their own."

Ianto nodded in understanding. "She's the Martha the Doctor talked about, then?"

"The Doctor? You mean- oh, the clone guy. He talked about Martha?"

"Not much, to me anyway- but a couple times, I think he forgot he was part human, and got drunk, he would talk about all his companions, then."

Mickey's eyes widened. "The Doctor? Drunk? That is something I only saw once, and it was, like, Time Lord drunk. Different than human drunk. I would pay to see that."

The two of them laughed softly for a moment, before Mickey grew serious.

"But, really, Ianto- how are you doing? Switching universes isn't easy, less so if you didn't have a choice in the matter. When Rose..." he trailed off. "You at least look like you've been sleeping, or as much as Torchwood lets you, anyways."

"I didn't lose the person I was in love with when I fell through. She did." he reminded the other man.

"No, but you did lose an entire life. A good life, if I remember right."

Ianto couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he simply shrugged and looked away.

"Hey, mate, I had a good life there, too. But it turns out I could make one just as great here, too." Mickey told him.

..

"The family says hi," Martha informed him, sitting down and accepting the drink Jack handed her. "Although they were surprised to find out you were back on Earth." She gave him a pointed look.

"I've been a bit busy, since I got back!" Jack defended himself. "I've been meaning to visit them."

"You better. You missed my wedding, you don't need to miss Tish's, too."

He grinned. "Tish is getting married? To who?"

Martha rolled her eyes. "A UNIT scientist, actually."

"And they..."

"He's privy to Saxon. And he's a good guy. Good for her."

Jack smiled. "That's good."

Martha took a sip of her drink while she attempted to figure out how to phrase her next question.

"So," she began, looking towards the area where every one was gathered. "They're... back."

"In a way."

"Tosh. Owen... Ianto."

Jack frowned. "I know what you're going to say."

"No you don't. Because I don't even know what to say. I've never been on this end of something like this. My brother might be able to say something about this more than I can, because he knows what its like to suddenly have people around who are completely different than they were before."

Jack sighed, and took a gulp of his own drink before answering. "That's the thing, Martha. He's the same. Its less like he's a different person, and more like... like we gave him selective retcon, and he woke up remembering his life, and Torchwood, but forgot certain things completely."

"Like you?" Martha suggested gently.

"And aeroplanes. Apparently, they don't use aeroplanes much in his world." Martha suppressed a smile. "And Gwen, too. And Myfanwy. Certain brands of chocolate."

"Are you keeping a list?" Martha asked.

"Not intentionally."

She smiled softly. "What about the others? Are they different?"

Jack shrugged. "A bit. Tosh is more confident, but... sadder, too. She usually comes in to work looking tired, and she doesn't stay as late as she used to. Although," he added, "She's usually the last one here, besides me."

"Oh, don't tell me you're living in the Hub again," Martha complained.

Jack shot her a look. "Owen is less likely to come into work hungover, and much nicer to Tosh. Only a bit more polite to the rest of us. Hardly any difference at all, unless you really pay attention."

"I was speaking to Owen before, he didn't seem much different than last time I saw him- well, I mean, besides being alive."

Jack stood, moving to get a better view of his team. "That's the thing, isn't it?" he said softly. "They're alive. We never even got Owen's body, it was turned to dust, Tosh died in my arms, and Ianto..." he swallowed. "Ianto did, too. Nearly every agent I have worked with has died on the job. I've missed them all, mourned them all. I've never gotten anyone back, though."

"And now you have. They're all back, and like you said, they're all mostly the same." Martha reminded him.

"And now Alice is back, too, talking about reconciling. That's not something I ever thought would happen."

"Alice? Your daughter?"

Jack nodded. "I don't know what to make of all this. It seems like if I look at it too hard, it'll all shatter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a short word on the poetry quote I have at the beginning of this chapter; I plan to someday tattoo 'and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart' on me, because I've been obsessed with it forever, and e.e. cummings is my favourite poet.


	8. Alchemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might have noticed tumblr went down for HOURS on Wednesday. You might think I would have used that time to be productive, but mostly I just kept refreshing tabs and checking the twitter. I did write a bit, though.

_For I shall learn from flower to leaf  
That colour every drop they hold,  
To change the lifeless wine of grief  
To living gold  
-Alchemy, by Sara Teasdale_

/./

“I have a bone to pick with you, Martha Jones.”

Martha turned away from Jack, towards Gwen, who stood in the doorway. “What?”

Gwen smiled teasingly. “You told us you'd be a day. Its been over a month since we called you. I know Mickey can have a bit of trouble with being on time, but...”

Martha rolled her eyes at the reminder of her husband's tardiness. “It wasn't Mickey's fault, this time. Actually, we have a pretty good reason. We got time jumped.”

A moment of shocked silence followed Martha's admission, before Jack asked, “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Almost immediately after our call ended. You remember the explosion you heard?”

“The one you called 'nothing?'” he asked dryly.

Martha snorted. “When is it ever nothing? It was supposed to be nothing, but then they ended up having minor time manipulation abilities. When we tried to tell them they had to abide Earth laws while on Earth, one panicked at shot us ahead in time. Gave them enough time to clear out, hide their trail, but we missed six weeks.”

“Who was it you were after?” Jack asked, leaning forward.

“Nothing too threatening. Just a couple intergalactic backpackers. Varlets, actually.” Jack and Gwen froze, and Martha gave them a questioning look. “What?”

“Gwen, call everyone up here.” While Gwen left to follow his order, Jack quickly explained to Martha, “Alice? What pushed her into contacting me was her ex. He's threatening her. He's also a Varlet.”

“Your son-in-law is an alien?” Martha asked. 

“Ex-son-in-law.”

“And you think he's connected to the one's we met?”

“Varlet's breed and spread like rodents, but they always know every one of their kind on which ever planet they're on. If another Varlet is on Earth, Joe would know, and they would contact him.” Jack explained as the others followed Gwen into his office. “Are they still on-planet?”

“What's going on, Jack?” Gwen asked.

“Martha, Mickey- are the aliens who time jumped you on Earth, or not?” He insisted.

Rex exhaled in permanent annoyance with his boss. “Harkness! What the hell is going on?”

“We don't have any reason to believe they left. But they weren't hostile, and we figured the situation here was more important- so we asked UNIT to keep an eye out.” 

Jack nodded distractedly, picking up his phone. “Martha, tell them what you told me. I'm calling Alice.”

As the line rang, Martha explained what was happening. The team gave each other uneasy looks, some doubtful, some unsettled. 

“Dad? What's happened?” Alice answered her phone, panicked.

“Nothing for sure. We just got word that a ship of Joe's kind have been spotted around-” He looked to Martha.

“Just outside London.”

“Outside London.”

“Do you think they're here to help Joe? Or- I don't know, dad, what does this mean?” 

“Like I said, nothing for sure. I'll let you know as soon as we do, but... keep an eye out for people hanging around that you don't know. If they are friends of Joe's, they might be helping him.”

There was a shaky exhale across the line. “Okay.”

“Alice? I'm going to take care of this. Nothing is going to happen to you, I swear.”

“You've always liked telling pretty lies,” she muttered. Jack didn't respond, and after a moment she sighed. “I didn't mean that. Just- you're not God. You can't promise nothing will happen.”

Jack's face fell into determined lines. “Just watch me.”

..

“I've just got off the phone with UNIT. They've not found the Varlets. But they also detected transmat beams a few hours ago- they think the backpackers that time-skipped us might have hitched a ride with a passing ship.” Martha announced an hour or so later.

Gwen leaned back in her chair. “Can we trust them?”

“UNIT? Yeah, new head's been running everything different, better. We're on pretty good terms with her.” Mickey assured her.

“Who's that again? Stewart or something?” Gwen asked. Mickey nodded.

“She's the reason UNIT's been cooperating with us again.” Jack shared. “Once she discovered my connection to the Doctor.”

Martha nodded. “Same with us,”

“Is his word that good?” Rex asked. “He mostly seemed like a twelve-year-old in a bow-tie.”

“Bow-tie?” Mickey asked. He was ignored.

“His word is worth more.” Jack's eyes got a distant look as he remembered things centuries in his past and millennium in the future. 

Ianto looked around, noticing that Martha and even Mickey had the same look. It was one he had gotten used to seeing on Rose, even Pete to some degree- it seemed like anyone who travelled with him was destined to have a sort of hero worship love for the alien.

“So... we think there's nothing to worry about?” Rex pressed.

Micky shrugged. “Could've been anyone on those beams. Just cause UNIT thinks it as our guys, doesn't mean it was our guys.” 

Rex exhaled heavily. “So there's something to worry about?”

“Didn't say that, did I?” 

“We don't even know if they were friends of Joe's in the first place,” Jack cut in loudly. “We'll just keep aware. Gwen, did you manage to get police protection from Andy?”

“Yep. God knows why that man is still talking to us, but he's stationed one of the officers more aware of our going-ons outside her house.”

“Good. I called Johnson too.”

“Bloody hell, why her?” Rhys interjected. “That woman chased us all over London, tried to blow you three up!”

“She _did_ blow one of us up, Rhys, remember?” Jack's face darkened. “But she was following orders. Sometimes, you have to follow orders that you don't really want to.”

“You may remember, I drive a lorry. My orders aren't usually so life-or-death.” He paused. “Until the space whale, at least.”

“Space whale?” Toshiko said at the same time Owen muttered, “Fuckin' Torchwood.”

Jack attempted a stern look, the small smirk betraying his amusement. “Alright, then. Alice is safe, for now, the rift monitor says it should be a calm night, and I have some work to do. Why don't you all head out.”

Owen shook his head. “I can stay behind and watch the rift in you wanna go with 'em somewhere,” he told him, nodding towards Martha and Mickey. “You seem like you have some time to catch up on.”

Jack gave him an odd look. “You sure, Owen?”

“Yeah, I got some work to do yet.”

Jack stared at him for a moment longer, before shrugging, and turning to Martha. “You two up for a night out? We could go to that restaurant.” He looked to Mickey. “Remember that place?”

“The one we ate at back when the Doc was big ears? Yeah, sure. Martha, babe? You hungry?”

Martha smiled at him fondly. “Sounds lovely.” Glancing around, she noticed that Gwen and Rhys were already leaving, Owen and Tosh were in their work stations, and the only other person in the room was Ianto, who was tidying up.

Mickey seemed to notice him at the same time Martha did, because he said, “Hey, Ianto, why don't you come with? It's been a while.”

Martha glanced at Jack, then jumped on the opportunity her husband had just opened for her. “Oh, please do come, Ianto. It's not every day I get to meet Mickey's friends from his time across the void.” She smiled brightly. “You don't mind, Jack, do you?”

Jack couldn't seem to decide between glaring, rolling his eyes, or grinning. Finally, he ended on an easy smile and a nod. “Course not.”

Martha's grin spoke of terrifying things.

..

Owen looked up from his paperwork when he heard Jack and Ianto leaving with Martha and Mickey, and was surprised to find Tosh still at her station.

Curious, he wandered over to her. “What'cha doing, Tosh? I thought Jack said you could leave?”

She looked up from the computer screen. “Oh. Well, I- don't much feel like being home, right now.”

He pulled a seat over, and sat next to her. “Don't feel like going out, either?” She shook her head. “What's the matter, Tosh?”

“You'll think it's stupid.” Tosh sighed.

“It's possible. It's also possible that telling me will help.” he paused, wincing at his pathetic words. “It's also possible I'll sound like a bloody self-help book.”

She smiled slightly at that. “You remember Mary, right?”

Owen looked away. “'Course I do. I knew her before you, even.” 

He had- if only for a week or so. Mary had been Torchwood Three's leader, and she was the one that had recruited Suzie, Owen, and Toshiko- in that order- after the former leader had touched or opened or listened to or somehow came in contact with something alien, which had resulting in him killing everyone inside Torchwood's Hub- and then himself.

Mary had only escaped by being the one who had gotten New Years Eve off, and therefor out of the Hub celebrating. She had come back January 1, 2000, to find all her team mates dead. Torchwood London had declared her the new leader, and told her to find a new team.

Owen doesn't know for sure, but he had the sneaking suspicion that Suzie had been a one-night-stand of Mary's, or maybe even a fuck-buddy. It didn't really matter in the long run, but it was something he used to wonder about.

She had hired him after his wife had died. Cornered him in a pub somewhere, bought him a drink, and told him a story.

To be honest, Mary could have sat down next to him with a free drink and told him a story about Little Red Riding Hood, and he would have said yes to whatever she had proposed next. He was a widower, jobless, friendless, and had nothing to lose.

Torchwood had saved him, and while many people in Cardiff could say that, Owen thinks he may be one of very few agents who could.

Toshiko had come in one month after he met Mary. 

He thought she was beautiful from the first moment he saw her, but he still had his ring on his finger, and Katie's face in his mind, the smell of her grave dirt in every breath. He was nowhere close to being able to move on. Once he was... Tosh had already fallen for Mary.

Every day, he seemed to grow more and more hopelessly infatuated, and then- and then.

They got word from some resistance group in London that there was an army of metal men killing everyone they could find. They had grabbed the deadliest weapons they had, Tosh had fired up the teleporter, and they had tried to save people.

In the end, the only thing their presence caused was Mary, blond hair stained red and sticky with blood, limp on the concrete.

And Tosh, crying for her lost love.

If there was anything Owen understood, it was what Tosh was going through. He saw how she lost herself in alcohol and meaningless sex most every night. Just like he did after his wife. 

Torchwood had saved him. _Mary_ had saved him. 

But Mary was gone, and that was the problem.

“It's just... the date. It's an anniversary, of sorts.” Tosh continued. “First time she kissed me.”

Owen looked away. “I'm sorry Tosh.” He said softly, genuinely. “I- I really am. Mary was a good woman. And she loved you. I wish...”

To his horror, Toshiko let out a small sob, her eyes closing in at attempt to keep tears from falling.

“I'm sorry. Usually, usually its Gwen that has to deal with me like this.” Her voice was thick, and she tried to wipe the tears that had fallen off her cheeks.

“Do you want me to call her? I'm sure she wouldn't mind-”

Tosh shook her head. “Not that Gwen. The Gwen that lost Rhys. Talking to her- she understands. This Gwen, she tries, but the person she loves in still back home, alive and well and she can go back to him. I can't go back to Mary. She's gone forever.”

Owen hesitated. “Do you want to talk to me?”

“You?” She blinked in shock. “Owen, no offence, but I don't know that you under-”

“My wife died.” he cut her off. “Not in the Cyber attacks, obviously, but before I joined Torchwood. She had a brain tumour. One day she was fine, we were even talking about kids- and then a month later, I was at her funeral. I'm a doctor, I know what happened, medically- I could probably explain every stage she went through, what parts of the brain were effected, what symptoms they caused. I could give you a list of medical mumbo-jumbo doctor-speak, and you, Toshiko, would probably understand it all.” He smiled weakly at her, an she returned it.

“But when she was dying, I didn't see it like that. I looked at scans and tests and watched her lose herself in her own mind, and all I could think was that something had gotten into her head, and it was eating away at her mind until she wasn't there anymore.”

“Was there?” Tosh asked softly.

“Hmm?”

“Was there, something in her. There are certain aliens, and alien viruses...”

“Nah, I checked, after I joined Torchwood. It was just a normal, human tumour. At first, I wished it had been some alien that had killed her, 'cause then I'd have something to hate, to want revenge on. But there's nothing to hate, unless I want to age against tumours in general. Which might get a bit tiring and pointless. I probably would have, though, if I hadn't been recruited. Given something more important to think about, to fight for. The safety of the human race, I dunno if it gets bigger than that, for us.”

Tosh was quiet. “I never knew, about your wife.”

“I don't like to talk about her, much.”

“I understand.” They sat in silence for a long time, the noises of the Hub stirring the air around them, Myfanwy out for the night stealing sheep or sommat. “Owen?” Tosh asked after a while.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

Owen smiled gently. “Anytime, Tosh. Anytime.”


	9. Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

_Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts  
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big   
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out   
You will be alone always and then you will die.   
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog   
of non-definitive acts,   
something other than the desperation.   
-Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out by Richard Siken_

/./

“Its exactly the same,” Mickey remarked as they all sat.

Jack grinned, looking around the restaurant. “It hasn't been that long, linear-wise. That was late '06.”

The hacker sighed. “Seems like a different life.”

“It was.”

Ianto exchanged a look with Martha before asking, “When were you last here?”

Mickey snorted. “Back when Jack 'n Rose travelled with the Doctor, and I still lived on the Powell Estate. The Doctor has to stop in Cardiff to fuel up the TARDIS on the Rift or something, so when he did, I met up with 'em to see Rose. The four of us went out for lunch, found out a Slitheen was mayor of Cardiff and stopped her from destroying the Earth.”

“Slitheen, they're the large green ones, yes?” Ianto asked.

“That's the one. Rose had already met her, too, when her and the Doctor blew up 10 Downing Street.”

“Just a normal day with the Doc.” Jack laughed.

“Whenever the Doctor was around we'd end up with _some_ sort of disaster or crisis. Jackie reckoned he did it on purpose.” Ianto reminisced quietly.

“Right- you knew the meta-crisis, didn't you, Ianto?” Martha realized.

The Welshman nodded, while Mickey shared, “Ianto was one of the original members of the Dimension Cannon project, 'for the stars started going out and we put everyone onto it.”

Jack shot a look at him. “You were?”

“I've known Jake since I first came to London. Joined the Preachers- ah, the resistance group that fought against Lumic- and they sent me to work for Pete. I kept my job with him after he took over Torchwood, so I joined up. After Rose got trapped, she and I got along. When she got the idea for the Cannon, I volunteered to help.”

“And he probably would'a had it working even without the darkness, too.” Mickey grinned. 

“I sincerely doubt that, Mickey. Rose may have, though. I don't know anything could have stopped her from finding the Doctor.”

Martha looked at Jack. “But she did. Against all odds, she found the man she loved, and she got a life with him. He may not have been the same exact person she fell for, but he was still him. And that was enough.” She glanced at Ianto. “Right? They were happy?”

Ianto paused before nodding. “Yes. It took some time, but in the end- well, Mickey, you used to say it, yeah? The Doctor and Rose Tyler, the way it should be.”

Mickey looked between his wife and the Captain as they stared at each other, having some sort of mental conversation before he rolled his eyes and nodded at Ianto. “Yeah. I guess some people are just meant to be.”

/./

Ianto had taken a cab home, while Jack, Martha, and Mickey chose to walk back to the Hub, as they were staying in one of the new rooms they had added in the rebuilding. 

Martha had spent most of the dinner dropping hints about Ianto and Jack. It would have been funny if it didn't hit so close to home. Jack knew she was just trying to make him happy, fix things that had been destroyed, but perhaps certain things couldn't be remade.

Even by the woman who remade Earth.

He let Tosh and Owen go home, and sat quietly in front of the Rift monitors, trying not to think too much about anything other than the steady line of rift energy, not sure whether he hoped it would spike or stay quiet.

Around 3am, Martha wandered out of her room and sat beside him.

“I know it hurts,” she began. 

“Don't. Martha, just don't. A lot of things in my life have hurt, and having those three back, even if they're not exactly the same people- its pretty far down the list of things that hurt.”

“Jack...”

He took a breath. “Let me explain something, okay?” his voice was soft. Martha nodded. “Okay. I have... lost a lot of people. I've even had some of them come back. It usually doesn't end well when they do, though. And I've cared about a lot of people. But... my team, _this_ team- Gwen, Tosh, Owen, _Ianto_ \- I cared about them more than I've ever cared for anyone except the Doctor and Rose, back on the TARDIS, and my family, when I was just a kid. 

“I don't know why. Maybe 'cause I was their leader, except, I've been a leader before. Maybe 'cause they were the first team I had that I trusted that much, so much that I kept trusting them even after they betrayed me, separately and together. I've trusted people before, I've loved people before, I've even had families. But they were the first time I felt like I was _part_ of a family since the Doctor left me.” He pondered something for a moment. “Maybe it was because I hand-picked them. Except Ianto. He sort of stalked me until I gave him the job. But look how that turned out.”

Martha had listened to him in silence during his speech. Now she spoke. “Jack. Does it really matter _why_ they're your family? Can't you just accept that they are, and just... be happy you got a second chance? Then take the second chance... with all of them? Assuming, of course, you still feel-”

“I still feel.” he cut her off. “For him. But its not- he doesn't. It's not _him_.”

“Maybe this Ianto doesn't love you as you love him,” Martha began. Jack winced slightly. “But the Ianto from this world, did he love you at the start?”

“I doubt it.”

She grinned. “But he fell for you. So why couldn't this one, too? If you gave him the chance?”

Jack didn't say anything. The Rift stayed steady.

Martha stood. “I'm going to make some tea. You should go to sleep. I'll watch the Rift.” Jack hesitated. “Go. Sleep.” Martha prodded, pulling him up. “I'll wake you if the world decided to end.”

Jack smiled, and gave her forehead a quick peck. “Thank you, Martha Jones.”

/./

When Gwen came in the next morning and relieved Martha of babysitting the Rift, she went back to her room to find Mickey already awake. 

“Hey, babe. Did you talk to Jack all night?”

Martha grinned. “No. He looked pretty knackered, so I offered to watch the Rift for the night.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Nope. I was talking to Gwen just now, she says the Rift has been fairly stable these days. Since Jack closed it a few months back, anyways. Less 'flotsam and jetsam'. Still time/space energy leaking through, though, and bringing the occasional alien with it.”

Mickey nodded. “Nothing's ever just done with, is it?”

“Ah, but that would be _easy_. Which _nothing_ associated with Jack Harkness is.”

“Except himself,” he joked lightly. Martha snorted. “I'm guessing your talk with him went badly?”

She sighed, lying down on the bed. “It didn't go badly. Just... not perfect?”

“He'll come round. Maybe its better he gets over some stuff first.”

“It's _Jack_. That could take the next century.”

Mickey chuckled. “Well, he's connecting with his daughter, right? That's good.”

Martha hummed in agreement, then hesitated. 

“What?” he asked.

“It's just... don't you think its a bit odd? That Alice is even...” She sighed. 

“It's a bit weird, yeah. But Alice was raised Torchwood, right? She must get why he did it.”

“I suppose.” Martha shook her head. “I'm going to have a quick nap, okay?”

Her husband smiled at her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “Sleep well, babe.”

/./

It was true, the Rift was stable these days, and it was rare for it to take something or someone, so the job consisted of much less tracking down Rift spikes and finding whatever it had spit out- but Cardiff was still built on a Rift in Time and Space, and it still omitted Rift energy, drawing alien life to it. And just because the Rift wasn't spitting things out so much anymore, it didn't mean the things it already had disappeared.

The sewers of Cardiff were still full of Weevils, and at last count, there was at least a dozen Blowfish. While they had been in America and busy trying to stop the Miracle, a Hoix had eaten through the entire storage basement of a computer store, and there were still hundreds of non-sentient things that had been spit out in Cardiff, and into the hands of curious children and avid collectors and random people who found alien things lying on the ground and thought it would look nice on their mantle, not knowing it was actually a device much like the TARDIS's translation circuit, only it was for pets.

Ms. Hally had a very interesting time, considering she had four cats and a fish.

In other words, Torchwood no longer lived their lives at the Rifts every whim, but they never had a shortage of alien trouble.

Today, however, it seemed quiet. The Rift was calm, Andy hadn't called in anything odd, Tosh's software that scanned the local internet and phones hadn't picked up any key words, and UNIT was ignoring them.

Gwen could never really decide if she liked calm and quiet days.

Rhys and Anwen had stayed home, today. Anwen had a bit of a fever, so Rhys was taking care of her. 

Sometimes Gwen worried about that. How Rhys had ended up more in the 'mother' role than she had. She loved her daughter, more than anything in the entire universe, more than all the universes. And when it came to someone threatening Anwen, black helicopters shooting at her or mysterious people asking her to sacrifice Jack, she could handle that. She would shoot right back, she would kidnap the man who she... well, she wasn't sure what Jack was to her, something like a superhero that she hero worshipped, some kind of devoted love that would never die. 

Gwen Cooper would kill anyone in cold blood to protect her daughter, but when it came to a sniffy nose, Rhys was better.

Shaking off the thoughts that would only depress and worry her, Gwen glanced up at Jack's office, to see him sitting at his desk, feet propped up, glass in his hand.

Double checking that there were no alerts, Gwen headed up to join him.

Jack nodded when she entered, and took another gulp of what was definitely alcoholic.

“Bit early for that, isn't it, Jack?”

He sighed. “Probably.”

“What is it that's got you drinking at 7am?” Gwen paused. “Ianto or Alice?”

Jack laughed softly. “You know me too well, Gwen Cooper.” He took another sip, then put the glass down. “I had a talk with Martha last night.” He rubbed his eyes, moved his feet off the desk, and pulled out some paperwork.

Gwen waited, but apparently that was all he was going to say. She sighed internally. “So it's about Ianto, then.”

He stared intently at the paper in front of him. “How many Weevils were there, last Thursday? Was it three or four?” 

“Three. And you're avoiding the question.” This time she sighed aloud. “I know how you feel about him, Jack.” Gwen told him, standing from the chair.

“Really.” He feigned boredom, scribbling out his paperwork.

“Yes. Because I know that look.”

Jack raised his head. “What look?”

“How you look at Ianto. I know that look.”

“Do you now?” He crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair.

Gwen pressed her palms against his desk top, leaning forward. “Yeah, I do. It's how I look at Rhys.”

“And what is that look, exactly?”

“Its looking at him and not being able to believe he's actually there, alive, okay, and you could reach out and touch him. It's knowing you don't _deserve_ to touch him, because he doesn't even have a clue, all the terrible things you've done. Knowing that you are going to hurt him, no matter how hard you try not to, and its knowing that because you love him, he's going to die, and you don't know how you're going to manage when he's gone, because more than anything else, that look? Is love.”

Jack had looked away during her speech, but now he looked back. “If you know all that, why does it even matter how I feel? You're right, you know, I don't deserve him. I _will_ get him killed. So why, Gwen, _why_ does it _matter_?”

Gwen chuckled. “Because, you idiot. Ianto has a look, too.” She stood. “I know you feel like you don't deserve him, Jack. I may disagree, but the only person's opinion that actually matters is Ianto himself.”

Jack seemed a bit dumbstruck, so she leaned back. “You and Ianto were something amazing, Jack. He made you... not happy, although you were happier then, but... he made you at peace. I think he made you remember you're not a bad person, Jack. When you lost him... I think you forgot again.”

Jack didn't say anything, but he didn't look away. After a long silence, he nodded.

Gwen smiled, nodded back, and exited the office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very conflicted on whether to spell it Rift or rift.


	10. I Try to Tell Her Wolves Can't be Domesticated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm. Holy hell. The response on this fic has been pretty amazing- especially considering the slowness of the updates and the fact that I literally write 70% of it at 5am. And probably about 10% has been written in a car, when the only reason I'm writing it is to distract me from the fact that I hate long car rides.

_The television growls at a reasonable volume.  
The wolves grow wilder,   
and my flat-footed whimper is a failure,   
a reminder that I have nerve-endings, feelings,   
am therefore an animal.   
-I Try to Tell Her Wolves Can't be Domesticated, by Kara Candito_

/./

Alice Carter, formerly Alice Sangster, born Melissa Moretti, had grown up with Torchwood protocol drilled into her head. Always know the exits in a room, always be aware, never let your guard down.

Her mother taught her everything she knew about Torchwood, aliens, and the Rift. While other children were tested on math or spelling by their parents, Alice repeated codes and rules and information no civilian was ever meant to know.

Alice resented her mother for that as a child. And a teenager. And an adult. She resented the fact that she was as well trained as any Torchwood agent, that she knew what would happen in the Hub if a certain event transpired, knew how long each shut-down lasted, knew so many little details that she had no use for.

Until the day her father murdered her son.

They rebuilt the Hub, but they kept the same general layout, and the technology was a bit more advanced than it had been in her mothers time, but with some basic knowledge, she was able to adjust the information that had been seared into her mind as a child. 

Alice Carter, Alice Sangster, Melissa Moretti- it didn't matter what her name was. 

The only thing that mattered was her son was dead. And she was ready.

..

He still wasn't used to this bed.

It was the same type of mattress Ianto had had back in Pete's World (a name which he didn't say out loud, but it was catchy), only, this one lumped differently.

In Pete's World, Ianto rarely had time for dates, never mind relationships, so his bed very rarely had anyone that wasn't him in it, and they never stayed long enough to cause the mattress to dent in their shape.

In this world, his mattress had very obviously had two people sleeping in it for many nights.

Even saying 'two people' in his own mind sounded like a bad lie. It was obvious who those two people were, as it was obvious whose clothing was still folded in the drawer he had yet to empty.

As he readied himself for the day, Ianto decided he was finally going to get the answer to the question that was the other him- and the fact that that sentence did not seem odd to him meant he had probably been spending too much time around dimension jumpers.

For something that was meant to be impossible, it sure happened a lot.

Seeing Mickey again had reminded Ianto just how different someone could be in another dimension. Little experiences, shaping them into a new person. Or just- being different. Rickey was gay. Mickey was not. That had nothing to do with little experiences changing one of them. It just was.

So, who exactly was this world's Ianto Jones? The man seemed to have his taste in flat decor, bed choice, and personal style- which was very convenient and all, but told him nothing. Jack, Gwen, even Rhys had all told him things; Jack, basic facts about his life (family, schooling, job history); Gwen, little things (he made the best coffee in the universe, he was a good friend, had much the same sense of humour as he did); Rhys, random facts he had noticed in the handful of time he had spent with the other man (he enjoyed watching football, he was handy with a stun gun, he liked dark chocolate, he knew how to operate heavy machinery).

Those little facts were better than nothing, but he needed to know more. Because if he had ever had any hope that he would be able to return to his home dimension, it was gone, now, and as much as he sometimes missed his old life, missed Torchwood London and the blimps in the sky and the Tyler's, he liked this life, too.   
Maybe it was time to start living it.

..

Ianto got to work in time to leave immediately, Gwen hurrying them all to SUV, quickly explaining to him the situation at hand.

It turned out that a retired scientist had died recently, and his granddaughter had inherited his home. The day she moved in, however, the strangest smell started coming from inside the walls.

“Oh, no. That _can't_ be good.”

Jack snorted. “That's what she thought, too. Except she assumed it was mold or a dead rat. Which is why she decided to take a look.”

“What did she find?” Mickey asked, somewhere in between amused and grim. Ianto knew that, depending on the answer, he would fall to one side or the other.

“A secret basement,” Gwen answered. “Which, she then thought, 'oh, my granddad the scientist keeps a hidden cellar which now is smelling very odd. I think I'll take a look around'.”

Jack snorted again. “Cue hysterical screaming loud enough for the neighbour to call the police. The guys that responded called Andy, Andy called us.”

“What was down there?” Tosh asked.

“Don't know yet. No one's been real helpful with explaining.”

“Right, so, all we know is something was found in a mad scientists basement that was weird enough some coppers- from _Cardiff_ , I might add, which is prone to some fucking weird shit in the first place- are now completely useless and are passing it on to us.” Owen summarized.

“That is correct.”

“So, should be a normal morning, then.”

..

It turned out the dead mad scientist had a fondness for taxidermy in his youth, and had taken it taken it back up when he retired. Only, instead of stuffing normal animals, he went for aliens. Combined with normal animals. And other aliens. 

If it wasn't the single creepiest thing Tosh had ever seen, she would probably be impressed.

The smell had come from a corpse that the dead mad scientist/taxidermist had probably planned on... doing whatever you did to animals you were going to stuff, except he passed away first.

It was a Hoix, and from Owen's initial examination, it had died of natural causes. 

“Going by the age, I'd guess old age. Lot's of the things he was stuffing were old.”

“Is that how he was getting the bodies? Just- finding dead aliens and bring them home?” Tosh asked.

“He was 86 years old, he probably wasn't going out and fighting a Weevil just so he could attach its head to a- what the hell is this?” Mickey asked, poking one.

“Please don't do that.” Gwen protested.

“Looks like a bear.” Owen told him helpfully.

“That is disturbing.” Gwen held back a shudder. “Why would anyone do this?”

“Boredom, I imagine.” Ianto informed her as he stopped halfway down the stairs.

Owen made a noise of protest. “Taxidermy requires skill! _And_ its vital to preserve species.”

“I'd point out that there is no such thing as a wolf/Sensorite. So that is not preserving anything except, perhaps, the deceased’s imagination.” He pointed out. “Jack said to bring everything alien upstairs. I'm to go get the moving truck to bring it all back to the Hub.”

The four others groaned as Ianto popped back up the stairs and out of sight, obviously trying to get away from what was sure to be awkward, slow, hard work.

Mickey called after him. “Is Captain Cheesecake going to help, at least?” 

..

Jack did not help.

Instead, he decided he would drive Ianto back to the Hub, so Ianto could drive back in the truck while Jack drove the SUV. That way, he reasoned, the entire team wouldn't have to pick between either squeezing into the back or getting a cab.

It actually made a lot of sense. But it made it slightly awkward, since Ianto both wanted to ask Jack the questions he had decided needed asking, as well as to be professional, and wait until they weren't working.

 _Not exactly working right now_ , a voice in the back of his head decided to remind him.

 

He also didn't want to have this conversation rushed, and the drive back to the Hub wasn't that long.

Ianto's indecision was making the silence awkward, which he was made aware of when Jack cleared his throat.

“You look... pensive.” The Captain informed him.

“I've been thinking about certain things.”

Jack turned to him, completely disregarding the road he was driving on. “Like?”

“Watch the road, please,” Ianto requested desperately. Jack did as he was told. “Just... things. About being in this universe. Differences, mainly.”

“It making your head hurt?” Jack smirked. “Pondering the mysteries of time and space can do that. I think its why so many Time Agents ended up- well, you've never met John, but the term most would use would be 'nut job'. When your job is to not only think deeply about the laws of time and how large the universe really is, but to travel to all ends of it- well, you've travelled farther than even I ever have. You know.”

“You don't talk about the Time Agency much.” Ianto observed.

Jack shrugged. “I could tell stories 'til the end of time, but they're not the kind of thing I like to think about. I was a different man back then. I doubt any of you would of been able to stand me, never mind-” he cut himself off. 

Before Ianto could question the abrupt end to the sentence, Jack parked the SUV in front of the Hub's garage entrance.

Pursing his lips, Ianto grabbed the latch on the door. “I think you might judge yourself too harshly, Jack,” he told him, pushing the door open and quickly jumping out, leaving Jack to drive back alone.

..

The process of moving the taxidermy animals- most of which had been given names by the team- from the basement to the main room, then covering the stranger ones up so any curious neighbours wouldn't be alarmed by the sight of various alien parts attached to various earth-animal parts, then moving them into the truck, took much longer than anyone expected.

Then the granddaughter, Shannon, had refused the water Ianto had offered her. Then the tea Gwen offered her. They were nearly ready to give up on retconning her and just feeding her a story when Owen had stepped in, handing the woman a cup of scotch.

She drank that, then promptly passed out. At the table. They made Owen move her to the couch.

Once Shannon was dealt with, they had to track down the police that had called them in in the first place. One was read in on alien happenings in Cardiff- that is to say, she had been doing her job long enough that she had responded to enough reports of 'dog attacks' and seen enough 'suicides' (not to mention Roman soldiers popping into the city, a hospital infected with the Black Death, a giant shadow monster, an army of weevils, and every other insane thing too large to cover up with anything other that clever lies) that she knew there was something Not Normal in her city. 

Her partner, however, was rather new, and he hadn't yet caught on- which prompted a discussion on whether or not to retcon him. His partner told them he could handle it, and it wasn't like he wouldn't be seeing more aliens. They had to call Jack to authorize it.

To be honest, Ianto thought retcon was getting a bit redundant. Maybe it was the fact that alien life was an accepted fact for nearly everyone back in Pete's World, or maybe it was the that it was an accepted fact here that if you suddenly woke up with a missing chunk of memory, you had seen something Torchwood-related.

Seriously, doctors mostly ignored anyone with memory loss as a complaint. Which might not be a good thing for people with memory loss caused by actual illnesses.

“It's divided. Some say aliens, others say monsters, heard a few saying faeries- but the only people who believe the cover-ups are like those people back home, the really stupid ones.” Tosh told him, walking back into the Hub. 

Ianto sighed. “I got asked if I was one of 'those alien hunters with the black van' by a cashier the other day.”

She laughed. “Have you ever noticed that Torchwood is the least secret secret agency ever?”

“Its hard to keep something a secret when its been around for over a century. At some point you sort of stop trying.” Jack said, suddenly behind them. “I think the last agent to really care about secrecy was- well, me, and I gave up some point around the giant monster from hell killing people with its shadow.”

“Have I ever told you, Jack, your stories are vaguely terrifying?” Ianto asked. Jack snorted.

“Jack, there's a call for you, it's Alice,” Gwen's voice called from her desk. Jack's smile dropped off his face as he went to answer the phone.

Ianto and Tosh sat at their own desks, both watching their boss intently. After a few moments, he hung up and went to grab his coat from where he had hung it on the main room's coat rack, evidently not having been up to his office yet. On some strange instinct, Ianto grabbed it first and held it out for Jack to slip on, not noticing the way it calmed Jack or the way Gwen watched with fondness.

“What's going on, Jack?” Gwen asked when he didn't say anything.

“Nothing important. Alice wants to talk.”

A daughter wanted to talk to her father. That was all. But for some reason something was chewing at Ianto's stomach, prompting him to ask, “Do you want one of us to come with you?”

Jack shook his head distractedly. “No, that's fine. Rex is watching the house today.”

“He can't be happy about that,” Tosh guessed. 

“He'll be happy when he hears he got out of dead animal moving duty.” Gwen huffed.

Jack spared them a small smile before leaving rapidly.

Ianto tried to remind himself not to worry.

..

With Jack gone, and the day coming to an end, Ianto decided to question Gwen.

Since she had gone home early last night, Gwen had volunteered to stay a while to watch the Rift and alert systems. She couldn't stay all night- she rarely could, not unless Anwen was at the Hub, and Rhys too, in case they all had to rush out suddenly- but Mickey had promised he would take over for the night if Jack wasn't back by the time she had to leave.  
Tosh had left, Owen not far behind, and Martha and Mickey had gone out to eat. It was only Gwen, Ianto, and Myfanwy in the Hub.

“You can go to, if you want, Ianto.” Gwen offered as he placed a coffee in front of her, which she eagerly sipped, sighing in happiness.

“Actually, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions I have. I was going to ask Jack, but... well, I decided this morning I would have at least some answers before I went home.”

Gwen blinked, surprised, then smiled softly and nodded. Her smile reminded him of his mam's, and he was struck by how contradictory Gwen Cooper was. Because she was a loving, warm, mothering person who wanted the whole world to love each other and seemed to take everyone's pain as her own, a lot like his own mother- but his mother had never shot a hostile alien craft out of the sky and cut down the survivors with a semi-automatic rifle while ducking from their laser blasters like Gwen had two weeks ago.

“Of course, Ianto. What were you wondering?”

He sighed. “About- me, actually. Or, more specifically, the me that wasn't _me_ , that you knew before... me...” he trailed off as he wondered if that had made any kind of sense. 

“Oh. Uh, what would you like to know?” She asked him, so he guessed it had made sense.

“I know the, ah, main things, from the paperwork, and I know little things that you guys have mentioned, and a few basic things I've been able to work out myself. But-”

“The reason for you wanting to have this conversation with Jack is involved with your first question, isn't it?” Gwen asked wryly.

He chuckled softly. “That first day- in the first few minutes of being in this world- you showed us all a photograph.”

“From my wedding,” Gwen nodded. “I remember.”

“It was of all of us- except Rex, but he came in later, didn't he?- and it looked like three... couples.”

She nodded slowly. “In a way, it was. Tosh and Owen were never a proper couple. I think they kissed, once. They just kept... missing each other. And obviously it was Rhys and I's wedding.”

“And what about Jack and I?”

She exhaled. “Yeah. You were a couple. Bloody idiots in love, actually.”

He had figured as much, but it was still a jolt to hear it confirmed. Ianto pursed his lips, considering.

“You- other-you- dying broke something in Jack. I don't know if it was the straw the broke the camels back, or if...” She trailed off. “Jack knows you're not him. He understands you're not the person he loved. And I think he might even be able to separate you from the old Ianto. But it doesn't stop you from looking exactly like him. All of you. I see one of you three out of the corner of my eye, sometimes, and for a moment, I forget. I imagine Jack does the same.

“And, god, when we lost Tosh and Owen- I didn't know if I could keep on. I almost quit Torchwood. And after you- other-you- died... what I'm saying is if it was that hard for me, I don't know how Jack managed. He left Earth for a while. I guess that was his way. But when he came back, he was different.” She sighed. “I don't know what point I'm trying to make. Just that... know when I say Jack and the old Ianto were a couple, it wasn't just a... fling, even though I think it started out that way.”

Ianto nodded slowly. “Alright. Thank you for telling me.”

Gwen smiled tightly. “Any other questions? I don't mind if you do.”

“A couple, actually.” He grinned. “Just a few things I was wondering. Nothing serious.”

“Ask away.”

And that's how they spent the next few hours- Gwen recounting Ianto with stories from her years at Torchwood, various missions they had gone on together, trips the team took out to pubs or diners, silly things and sad times.

The time passed quickly, and Gwen only left for home when Martha and Mickey came back from dinner and she realized Rhys was expecting her home at a responsible (for Torchwood) hour.

Ianto told Mickey he didn't mind watching the alerts until Jack got back.

Mickey shrugged at followed his wife to bed, leaving Ianto at his desk.

Which is where Martha found him the next morning, still waiting.

Because Jack had never showed back up.


	11. The Mask

_"But lest you are my enemy,  
I must enquire."  
"O no, my dear, let all that be;  
What matter, so there is but fire  
In you, in me?"  
-The Mask by William Butler Yeats_

/./

Jack woke in darkness.

“I still don't know about this, Alice.”

He cast back in his memory- how had he gotten here? He remembered Alice calling him, driving...

“Then go.”

...he saw Rex, parked in front of her house. It looked like he was sleeping, but there was blood.

“I'm not letting you do this alone. He was my son, too. But he's _Torchwood_. Captain Jack's little jaunt off-world spread the fear of Torchwood across a dozen galaxies.”

Rex had revived just as he was pulling out his gun... and then...

“Good for him. Now either get out or shut up. He's awake.”

Jack's arms and legs were bound, and the familiar weight of his wrist-strap was missing. 

“Hello, dad.”

Light flooded against his eyes as a spotlight was turned on. Blinking, he sought out the face that he knew went with the voice.

“Alice. What...?”

“Did you really think I'd just forgive you?” Her face was shadowed from the light behind her, but he could still see the rage in her features. She looked so much like Gray.

“You look like your uncle. He hated me too.” There was a slur in his words, and blearily, he noticed the IV attached to his arm. “What- are you drugging me...?”

“My uncle. Would that be your brother? The one that blew up half of Cardiff?”

“How-”

“Joe's friends that your UNIT friends almost caught, one of them is a- what was it?”

A man stepped forward. “Memory shifter.” Jack recognized that voice. Joe. What was Joe...? “He tried to get into yours while you were out, but apparently you have fairly strong shields. But getting tied up like that, it brought a memory of your brother to the surface. Then he just followed it.” 

“Do you cause pain for everyone with the misfortune to be your family?” Alice asked. “I think Gray and I would have got along.”

Joe exhaled impatiently “Are we going to move this along, Alice? Or keep playing family with the fucker.”

Alice tutted her tongue in a way Jack still remembered from the middle of her marriage to Joe- after the honeymoon period ended, but before things got horrible. How long had she been working with him? 

God, Jack hated being drugged. 

“Fine,” Alice said, looking at him sharply, and god, she looked like her mother when she had kicked him out. “Lets get started.”

..

Gwen put the phone down, biting her lip. “They found Rex,” she told them. “Dead, beside the road. I convinced Andy to send him here instead of the morgue.”

“That's good. No traumatized ME's.” Owen tried to joke. It fell flat against the tension in the air.

“Where the hell is he?” Ianto asked.

Tosh bit her lip. “We followed the GPS in his phone, his car, I even tracked down the frequency of his wrist-strap- its rather rare, which helped- and we followed them all.” She stopped speaking.

“And?”

“We found his phone, car, and wrist-strap.”

Ianto pulled his hand across his face. “Brilliant.”

“Well, what did Alice say?” Gwen asked Martha.

She shook her head. “Couldn't get in touch with her.”

“None of this is sounding good.” Owen sat forward. “So what do we think? Joe got to them?”

“No,” Ianto decided. “It's her.”

“Her who?”

“Alice. It's got to be her, it struck me as odd from the start, her wanting to reconcile with Jack, no matter that he had no choice, that he was doing what needed to be done. You don't forgive someone who kills your child. No matter how much you love them. You just _don't_.” He was humming with energy, frustration at not being able to _do_ anything wearing him thin.

Owen frowned. “How would you know?”

“I just do.”

Martha was shaking her head. “Ianto, I don't know-”

Mickey placed a hand on her shoulder. “Babe, just leave it, alright?”

He didn't even have time to shoot Mickey a grateful look before Gwen was asking, “Leave what?”

“My wife killed our son in the Cyber Invasion. So when I say Alice hasn't forgiven Jack, I know.”

Silence greeted his confession. It was broken by a beeping, which Tosh announced was Rex being delivered.

..

Tosh was trying to track Jack down with her various tech, and Gwen with her contacts, and the rest of them didn't have much they could do until Rex revived. Ianto was going through the information they had on Alice when Martha sat next to him.

“I forget that you're not the same Ianto we knew. I suspect Gwen does, too. But you aren't. You're this whole other person who had a whole other life, one that was the same sometimes but so different others. And we have no way of knowing how different until you tell us.” She paused, fiddling with her ring. “I'm sorry, by the way.”

“It was years ago.” He dismissed her condolences. Then, because Jack was missing and he had told them all his secret and Rex was taking too long reviving for a simple gunshot wound and _where the fuck was Jack_ he continued, “Lisa didn't wear an ear-pod, so when Lumic took over, she was still aware. Henry was only a year old. I wasn't- I wasn't home. When the Cybermen started going into homes, she hid with him. And she decided it was better to kill him than be taken.”

“Oh, Ianto...”

“Ten minutes later the Doctor ended it, and the Cybermen stopped being a threat. If she had waited ten more minutes- but she didn't. A month later she took the car, drove to the nearest Cyber holding facility, conned her way in, and let them convert her. She couldn't take her guilt anymore, I suppose. Didn't want her emotions.” He paused. “I never did find her. They all look the same, you know.” Shaking his head, he looked past her. “Suppose she's in the Void anyways, now.”

“That's horrible. I- I can't imagine.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, long time ago. In that world, its not even the worst story from the Cyber Invasion. So many people...” trailing off, shaking on the cloud of sadness, he realized he had shared more than he meant to. “Rex is taking too long.”

Martha allowed the subject change. “My dad says he's seen it take four days for Jack to revive.”

“When was your dad timing Jack's resurrections?”

“Long story,” she told him.

“We don't have four days, in any case. Owen? Any sign he'll be waking up soon?” Ianto called down to autopsy bay, where the medic was watching Rex.

“It's weird. It's like something is preventing him from reviving. All his wounds are closed up, he should be...” exhaling in frustration, Owen grabbed a scanner and ran in over the body, moving from feet to head. “Yeah, looks like everything’s healed, so- wait.”

“Owen? What's wrong?” Tosh asked, moving away from her computer.

The doctor was holding the scanner above Rex's face, frowning. “There's something in his brain stem.” He rolled him onto his side, grabbing something to pull the object out.  
With a sharp tug, a knife blade slid out of the back of his head. Owen dropped it into the tray, and Rex gasped, sitting upright abruptly. 

“Good to have you back,” Martha told him once he had ceased the post-resurrection panicking. “What happened?”

“Jack's daughter shot me.”

“Are you- okay, Ianto was right. Shit.” Owen muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Do you know what happened to Jack?”

“Yeah, yeah, I woke up, just in time to see someone club Harkness over the head. I think it was the Joe guy. But then I was dead again. What the hell is going on?”

“Alice is working with Joe. Probably to get revenge for Stevens death. There's not really another explanation. They've got Jack.” Gwen told him, then turned to Ianto. “You're right. I should have known. If someone hurt Anwen...”

“So.” Rex grunted, pulling himself up and onto his feet, “What do we do know? We got any clue where they are?”

Looking around at each other, it became clear no one had any ideas.

Drawing a deep breath, Ianto nodded decisively. “We find Jack.”

“How, though?” Owen asked.

There was a silence while they pondered that. Tosh was the first to step forward.

“We're Torchwood. We'll find him, possibly with some kind of alien tech, maybe with bits of string and a telegram, but we will find him.”


	12. Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... been a while! Oops. Sorry about that. I've been focusing all my writing muses on my original fiction lately.  
> A couple notes, though; this is one of the last chapters of this fic. We've only got a few chapters until it's done. But- you may have noticed Nemetona is now a series. There will be oneshots, sequel type things, and just generally exploring the relationships of the characters as they move forward in this universe.

_“Then leaf subsides to leaf._  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay.”  
-Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost  
/./  
Torture hadn't been an unfamiliar concept for Jack since he was very, very young. He could barely even remember a time before the knowledge of how _just_ enough pain, _right there_ , can make you know anything.

Or simply do it to hear the screams.

He was seventeen the first time he got first-hand experience. That time, he was on the painless side.

Six months later, he was on the other.

That had been a very long time ago, though. Now Jack was- depending on how you looked at it- either more than a century, or more than two thousand years old.

The amount of pain he had inflicted, that had been inflicted on him, in all those years, was staggering. It was only the fact that he had no other choice that kept him living sometimes.

Yes, Jack was very used to pain.

Didn't mean it hurt any less.

“So,” Jack tried to force the fog of the drugs out of his head, looking sadly at his daughter. “You going to torture me, then?”

Alice laughed. It wasn't a cruel laugh, not even sharp or angry. It was the laugh of someone who was genuinely amused. “Screw you, Jack. I'm not a torturer, that's you.” She smiled. “Don't get me wrong, you know, I want you to hurt. I want you to hurt as much as I do, every day of my life.”

She stepped forward, putting only inches between them. “You killed my only child. My _son_. Your _grandson_. He was _your_ blood, and you killed him.” He must have looked as if he was about to remind her of the circumstances, so she cut him off. “Oh, I know. _You had no other choice. It was him or millions of other children._

“Well, you know what, _Captain Jack?_ ” She sneered at him. “You should have let those millions of children die. Or whatever those damn aliens were going to do with them. You should of let them have 'em, because Stephen would of been safe. He was safe, until _you_ came.”

“If I hadn't done it, someone else would have. One of the other soldiers, or scientists-”

“Yeah, we thought about that.” Joe spoke up. “Couldn't really get a roll call of the people there that day, but Alice remembers one of them real vivid. Johnson or something. Funny, you didn't think to look out for the other people involved in my son's death.”

“What did you do? Alice, what did he do?” Jack demanded, horror sinking into his gut.  
Alice shook her head slowly, a small smile on her face. “All he did was grab her. Him and his alien friends. I was the one who attached her to a supersonic something or other and  
watched as her blood boiled and her brain turned to mush. Kind of like what happened to Stephen.” She snorted, then leaned closer to her father, whispering, “I told her it was to save the world.”

Jack closed his eyes tight against the image. He had no love for Johnson- she did put a bomb in his stomach, destroyed the Hub, nearly killed Ianto, Gwen, and then-fetus Anwen, did kill him, and then buried him in concrete. 

But really, if he was going to hate every person that did something like that to him, he'd have to hate a lot of people. At least he hadn't been in that concrete for two thousand years.

Opening his eyes, Jack sighed. “Well, if you're not gonna torture me, what are you going to do?”

Alice met his gaze, and all the anger, the hate and sadness and loss drained out of them. She didn't look anything but dead, or maybe like she had never been living at all. Sort of like the eyes of her favourite doll as a child, a beautiful china doll that Jack had bought for her precisely because it had the same colour eyes as his daughter.

Then she blinked, and her eyes blazed at him. “I'm going to make you suffer.”

..

When Alice was twelve, she saw her father die for the first time.

It was one of those rare occasions where her mum would let her go alone with her dad, and they were in the park. They had spent most of the day there, and it was getting dark. Her mother had made a rule years before that Jack wasn't to bring his gun with him when he took Alice out. 

It was just their luck that the Torchwood agents of the time who were on duty that night chased their stray Weevil into the park- probably thinking it would be empty of families by that time- and straight into Alice. Her father was close enough to throw himself at the alien, and the agents were there to shoot the thing down before it could harm her.

The same couldn't be said for Jack; his throat was torn out, his guts spilling from deep claw marks on his stomach, and so much blood. 

He revived a few moments after Alice pushed her way out of shock to realize her father was dead.

When Alice was twelve, she discovered her father was a superhero.

..

“I've got it.”

Toshiko's voice rang loudly through the Hub, and even though it was layered with shock, it was sure.

“You've got it? You've got Jack?” Ianto was next to her in moments. 

Gwen was right behind him. “Where? How?” 

Tosh gestured at the CCTV videos she had running on several different screens. “I traced Alice's footsteps for the past month using CCTV footage, and her phone and cars GPS. She met up with Joe a week ago, and then I followed the footage of him to a house- owned by Ed Kerin.”

“Ed Kerin? Isn't that a false name that Jiptorite alien uses?” 

“Yes. He owns several houses and flats to store his smuggled goods and rent out to other aliens who are here hiding or sightseeing.” She shrugged. “It looks like Joe has been staying here. And-” clicking forward on the video showed two shadows in the corner of the screen dragging something large enough to be a man- to be Jack- into the house.

Gwen stood up from her hunched position over the computers to shoot a look at Ianto, who nodded sharply. “Tosh, send the address to the car. Rex, are you well?”

The man nodded, grabbing his weapon and smiling grimly. “Immortal blood heals all, apparently.”

“Good. Owen, you come too. Tosh, stay and coordinate from here?” At her nod, Gwen turned to Ianto. “Ianto... are you going to be able to do this?” She didn't have to elaborate.

“I'm coming.” Is all he said.

“Good. Lets go save Jack.”

..

“They're here,” Joe announced solemnly.

Alice nodded sharply. “Help me get him into the van. Wait- one thing,” she grabbed a syringe, injecting something that really didn't seem like it was a good thing to be injected with into her father's neck. 

At the expression that flashed across his face, Joe chuckled. “Don't worry, Harkness, just a little paralytic. From my homeland. With your- ah, _special abilities_ , it'll clear out of your system quick enough. Which is why we should move him, now.”

While the two of them moved Jack out of the place that had been serving as a cell, he attempted to get answers. “Who' here?”

For probably the hundredth time, he thought about how much he _hated_ sedatives.

“Just your friends, come to save you.” She sounded amused.

Horror was sinking into his stomach. “You wanted them to come,”

“'Course we did, I told you I wanted to make you suffer, like I did. You destroyed my family. Now I'm going to destroy yours.”

They were at the van then, Joe shoving Jack's limp body into the front seat, buckling him tightly while Alice got in the drivers seat.

Joe closed his door, reached for the back door- and then Gwen was shouting, Rex was shooting, Ianto was saying his name, Owen was rushing forward because he was a doctor and there was an injured man, except we wasn't injured, because Owen stilled, and then Alice was driving away as fast as she could.

..

When Alice was fifteen, she showed up outside the Hub in the middle of the day, having skipped school to visit her father and ask him to teach her to drive.

He agreed, because when he was fifteen he was learning to do things much worse than driving underage. 

He agreed, because he wanted to spend time with her. And if driving was how they did it, he would buy her a car.

Alice learned to drive in a secret government agencies' van, instructed by Captain Jack Harkness, and that was probably part of why she never learned to drive any way but fast.

..

It was becoming very obvious that Joe's death was not part of the plan..

“Alice,” Jack said. She ignored him, pushing the gas pedal down and muttering curses at the rear view mirror, where his team were undoubtedly attempting to pursue them. “Alice! Joe is dead.”

“I know Joe's bloody well dead. I hope you're proud, Jack,” she laughed, and it was a terrifying sound. There was no hope left in that laugh, not even hope for vengeance. “Torchwood has officially killed everyone I've ever loved. Steven, Mum, Joe, _god_ , even you, dad. Torchwood killed you too, for all you're right here.”

The paralytic was beginning to wear off, but not enough to be any use. “Alice...”

“We were going to kill that team of yours. Or, at least, that Ianto. I see how you look at him. I thought, he's the one, who it would hurt the most to lose. But now,” she snorted. “I'll just have to settle with an eye for an eye.” Suddenly, her head jerked towards him. “Do you love me, dad? I know of any kids you've had, I must be the worst, with all this, but- do you love me, anyways?”

Jack was only speechless for a moment, seeing his daughter look like the girl who used to run away and skip school and lie about being with friends to come see him. “I will always love you, Alice. No matter what you've done, what you do- you're my daughter. I will love you until the end of time.”

She smiled softly, then nodded. “Good. I'm glad.” She glanced out the window, then back to him. “That means you'll feel a parents sadness when they lose a child. Just like I did. Goodbye, Jack.”

Then she lurched the wheel, undid her seat belt, and crashed the car.


	13. if i believe in death

_if i believe  
in death be sure   
of this  
it is   
because you have loved me,   
moon and sunset   
stars and flowers   
gold crescendo and silver muting   
of seatides   
i trusted not  
-if i believe in death by e.e. cummings_

_/./_

_When Jack is nine and is not yet named Jack, his village has a food shortage. Not anything truly serious, and not anything they haven't been through several times over- its a danger of the remoteness of their home, of living off the sea and land. Sometimes they just don't have quite as much. No one will die, but some people will have to go without a full helping._

_Most families take turns at skipping- each member of the family misses a meal each day. Jack doesn't let this happen in his home, sneaking most of his food onto Grey's plate on his baby brother's day, begging off meals on his mother's, sneaking food to his dad when he goes out with him to help whatever he's doing that day. The gnawing in his stomach is nothing compared to the way Grey will pout, wanting food but knowing he can't have any, even if he doesn't know why, or the way his mother smiles when she insists she's not hungry, or the way his father will stumble with dizziness when he hasn't eaten and still does three times the amount of physical labour others do._

_He learns to live with his body demanding something he can't give it, learns to hide that he needs anything but what he already has, and after one too many days, learns the lengths he can push himself before his body gives up._

_When he's drowning, hundreds of years before and after that time, trapped in his daughter's car, trying not to gasp for air that isn't there, denying his lungs what they scream at him for- he remembers that._

_He wonders what the nine year old he used to be would think of him when he refuses to take a breath, not to save a loved one pain, but to watch Alice's dead face for one moment more._

..

They fished Jack out of the water, along with the car and Alice. Both were dead, although it appeared Alice had broken her neck in the crash, whereas Jack had drowned, trapped in the car as he was.

Trapped next to his already dead daughter, his lungs burning for oxygen, knowing he'll come back if he just gives in, just takes that gulp of water into his lungs, then he won't have to look at his daughter, her neck snapped and head hanging wrong, the gash on her forehead not bleeding underwater but still vivid to him, he's her _father_ -

"Ianto?" Toshiko's worried voice broke into his thoughts of Jack's final moments. Not that he wouldn't have more moments, just... not with his daughter. Dead, alive, loving, hateful, none.

"I'm fine." He didn't know if that was true, but it seemed like the thing to say. "I was just wondering how long it'll take him to... wake."

They were in the hub, in the recovery room. It had a bed, was probably much less alarming to revive in than a autopsy bay, and besides- Alice was there, along with Joe. Dead.  
They weren't the first things Jack needed to see when he woke. 

“It depends on what happened to him, while they had him.” Tosh looked like she hated that answer, the uncertainty of it, as much as Ianto did. “Gwen thinks it won't be much longer.”

“She never thinks it'll be much longer.” He muttered. 

“We could try heating the room? It's not as if we have to worry about decomp. Or... attaching him to IV, maybe. They couldn't hurt.”

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Or maybe we should let him stay wherever he is for however long he's there. I don't know how much he'll enjoy waking up to his daughter's body in the next room.”

Tosh took a step towards him before hesitating. She took the next few steps to his side almost immediately, but it was enough to notice. “Ianto... I can't imagine what this next while is going to be like for Jack. But you can, to a degree, better than the rest of us at the very least. At the same time, though- its not the same. Just how I can understand what it was like to lose the woman you loved to Cybermen, but nothing beyond that, because it was different, Mary and Lisa. And Alice is incredibly different. She abducted him, who knows what she did or planned to do to him, and beyond that, Jack has done this before.”

“He's lost so many people, hasn't he? How does he manage?” He asked softly.

Tosh shook her head. “I suspect he manages because he doesn't have another choice.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Now, come on, I need a drink and you need food. Owen's just gone to get pizza, and Rex has a stash of beer. We'll still be near.”

Glancing one last time at Jack, Ianto followed her out of the room.

..

It was dark, so dark, heavy and unyielding against him, even though there was no him- he was nothing, just nonexistence surrounded by nonexistence. 

There was no fear, though, or pain, or anything else that he used to feel when he came here. This was death, and Jack knew death very well. 

He would never go so far as to say it was like home- home was Boshane, or the TARDIS, or the Hub, or the houses he had shared with lovers and children and family, or even, for far too short a time, a tidy flat in Cardiff with a closet full of suits and selves piled with books, a place that always smelled of coffee and while the fridge was almost never stocked, always had dark chocolate hidden in the back. 

Home was the man who owned that flat, that wore those suits and made that coffee.

Home was what he used to pull himself out of the dark, back to the light and warmth and existence. 

Jack took a breath, and opened his eyes.

..

This was the most depressing meal of pizza and beer she had ever eaten, Martha decided.

No one had spoken since they had all sat down to eat. They all just chewed, and swallowed, and drank, and chewed more. Sometimes one of them would turn to look towards the room Jack was in, or purse their lips and frown.

She really, desperately wanted to say something to break the silence, but she couldn't think of anything that didn't involve the last few days of hell. To keep herself from bringing that up, she kept chewing and drinking and swallowing.

Mickey sat beside her the whole time, the hand he wasn't using to eat holding hers between them on the couch. His thumb kept up a slow caress, his calloused skin causing slight friction against hers, but it was calming, the feel of it, and the warmth of their hands together reminding her that he was there. That he wasn't going anywhere.

Finally Toshiko brought up the subject they had all been avoiding. “We know there were more than the ones we caught involved in,” she gestured to the direction of the autopsy bay, to the bodies of the dead, to Jack. “This. Do we think we need to worry about them? About anyone else continuing Alice and Joe's mission for revenge against Jack? Or, even someone taking revenge for Alice or Joe, themselves?”

Ianto was the one to answer. “I don't think we have to worry about Jack, I think Alice took her revenge in killing herself. And I don't think Alice had anyone but Joe left- at the very least, no one we need to worry about. As for Joe...”

“We don't know shit about him, do we? He could be a real loved member of some alien mafia group. Or he could be in the same boat as Alice, and those friends of his were payed, just doing a job.” Owen pointed out, grumbling. He noticed Tosh finish her beer and frown at the bottom, so he pushed his barely touched bottle to her. She smiled in thanks, and his stomach flipped, and he fought desperately to keep his cheeks from flushing.

Martha watched the exchange between the two with interest. She'd have to look further into that after Jack woke up, but for now, Tosh had a good point.

“I'll contact UNIT, see if they have anymore leads on those other Varlets.” She sighed. “They said they'd let me know if they did, but...”

“UNIT has never liked Torchwood.” Mickey finished wryly. “Even with the new boss, still a way to go.”

Owen shrugged. “From what I can tell, Torchwood almost ended the world then left the whole of London unprotected. I doubt they like having to police the city.”

Gwen frowned. “They managed fine for most of the 20th Century, before Torchwood set a base in London.”

“But then we did all their work for them for over a decade, they got used to it.” Owen argued. 

Ianto joined the conversation then, musing quietly, “Perhaps its time Torchwood was in London again.”

“Planning on leaving us, Ianto?”

The group turned towards the voice, breaking into smiles as they saw the speaker.

Jack was awake.

..

“That's really all you need to know,” Tosh finished her summary of what had happened for Jack, glancing at her teammates to make sure she hadn't left anything out- or, at least, that what she had left out wasn't vital.

“Thanks, Tosh.” The tech expert could tell from his voice that he meant being spared the details as much as anything else. 

_He looks so tired_ , she thought. It was a strange sight on the Captain- despite the long hours and physical demands of Torchwood, in the time she had known him, Jack hardly ever looked worn down. When she had first fallen through the rift, he had been... drawn, maybe, a shadow over his eyes that had since disappeared- she thought regaining his team and his daughter had done it- but he never looked like all he wanted to do was collapse onto the nearest flat surface and sleep for days.

She wasn't the only one to notice. Ianto stepped forward, placing a heavy, grounding hand on their Captain's shoulder. “You need sleep, Jack.”

Gwen nodded in agreement, but added, “We'll be working still for a while, you won't get much rest down in your bunker I'm afraid.”

“Come back to mine, it'll be quiet there.” Ianto offered. At any other time, Jack would have made a joke of it, but he was so tired he barely had the energy for the ache in his chest remembering other times he had been invited the stay the night in that flat by a different person, for different reasons.

Now, he just nodded, accepted the greatcoat as Ianto slipped in over his shoulders, retrieved his wrist strap from Toshiko, and followed the Welshman out into the Cardiff night.


End file.
